


Ducktober 2017

by RadarsTeddyBear



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Gen, Inktober for Writers, One Shot Collection, Whump, prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-08 09:00:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 24,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12251205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RadarsTeddyBear/pseuds/RadarsTeddyBear
Summary: A collection of short one-shots for "Inktober for Writers" (Writetober?) 2017.  Mostly fluff with a little bit of whump here and there.  Tags and warnings are subject to change and will be as needed.





	1. Searching

**Author's Note:**

> The list of prompts can be found here: http://radarsteddybear.tumblr.com/post/165983284385/tottwriter-spymastery-as-i-mentioned-doing

Dewey ran through the long corridors, his breath coming in short gasps as he heard the distant countdown.

“Seven...six...five…”

“Ahhh!” Dewey yelled. He opened the nearest door and ran in, slamming it behind him. His eyes darted around the room, desperately trying to find somewhere to hide.

“Two...one...ready or not, here I come!”

Dewey dashed toward the first hiding place he spotted.

Footsteps sounded in the hall, punctuated by the sound of doors opening and closing. Dewey’s heart pounded as those footsteps grew closer.

The door to the room opened and the lights snapped on.

“Dude, really? Behind the curtain?” Louie said.

“Aw, come on!” Dewey said.

“Man, you really stink at hide-and-seek,” Louie said. “The only times you’re not the first one found are when you’re the seeker.”

Dewey groaned. “Whatever. Let’s go find the others.”


	2. Barefoot

“Ow, ow, _owwwww!_ ” Dewey said.

“I told you not to walk through here without your boots on,” Donald grumbled as he pulled briers from his nephew’s foot.

“Right.  Junior Woodchuck Rule Number 52 states--”

“Ow--I _know_ what your stupid guidebook says.  Could you just-- _ow_ \--not right now?”

“Well, technically, it’s _our_ ‘stupid guidebook,’ since we’re _all_ Junior Woodchucks--”

“Shut. _Up_.”

“This is all your fault, you know,” Donald said to Scrooge.

“What?  Me?  I told the lad to put his boots on!” Scrooge protested.

“You should know by now that just telling Dewey to do something is almost never enough to make sure he does it!” Donald said.

Scrooge spluttered.  “He’s _ten!_  I shouldn’t have to nag him to make sure he does what he’s told!”

Donald scoffed.  “Then you don’t know ten-year-olds.”

“Of course I know ten-year-olds,” Scrooge said, affronted.  “It might be hard to believe, but I was one once, you know.  And I knew well enough to do as I was told!”

“No, you _weren’t_ ,” Donald said.  “You’ve said it yourself--you didn’t have time to be a child.”

“But--”

“And don’t start saying that my boys are ‘soft’ for spending their childhood being kids instead of using it as a chance to get a head start on making their fortunes.”

“Hmpf,” said Scrooge, crossing his arms and turning his back toward Donald.

“Almost done, Dewey.  Just one more to go.  It’s stuck in pretty deep, though,” Donald said.

Huey and Louie moved to their brother’s sides, each taking hold of a hand.

“I’m ready, Uncle Donald,” Dewey said.

“Ok.  One, two, three.”

Underneath the sound of Dewey’s scream, his brothers could hear the sound of a flock of startled birds flying away.


	3. Warmth

“Ah,” said Louie, basking in the warmth from the gigantic fireplace in McDuck Manor’s little-used “parlor,” as Beakley had called it.

“Wha--?  Who’s--Louie!  It must be fifteen degrees warmer in here than the rest of the Manor!  Put that fire out now!”

“Awww, but Scrooge--”

“No buts!  It’s not even winter yet, and the heating system is working perfectly fine.  There’s no reason to have the grand fireplace going!”

“Ok, you say that, but as someone who lived on a _houseboat_ his entire life, there is _always_ a reason to have the grand fireplace going.”

“Oh?  And what reason is that?”

“To bask in the luxury of being warmed by a grand fireplace!”

Scrooge looked at his grand nephew in disbelief.  “How do you plan on paying for that?”

“What?”

“All that wood you’re using.  Not to mention cleaning the chimney when you’re all done.  How are you going to pay for it?”

“But--it’s _your_ fireplace, and you’re rich!”

“So?  I’m not the one _using_ my fireplace!”

“Uh--”

“I know you don’t have the money to pay for it, so if that fire isn’t out in the next five minutes, you’ll be working it off!”

“Ok!  I’m sorry!  I’ll put it out!  I just--uh--”

Scrooge watched as Louie scrambled to put out the fire.  Someday, that boy would understand the value of a dollar earned from a hard day’s work.  Someday.


	4. Compliment

_How to make friends:_

_Step 1: Introduce yourself.  Be friendly!  Don’t forget to smile!_

_Step 2: Ask them about themselves.  This makes you sound really interested!  Make sure you really listen to their answers!_

_Step 3: Pay your new friend a compliment.  Nobody can resist a good compliment._

Webby stared at the book for the hundredth time.   It made it sound so easy to make friends.  Webby was sure she could do it if she had the chance.

But that was the problem.  She never had the chance.

Grammy never let her leave the Manor without her, and as Mr. McDuck’s live-in housekeeper, Grammy just about never left.  And when she did leave, each outing was prefaced with the review of a long list of rules, emphasis on “stay by my side” and “don’t talk to strangers.”  But if Webby couldn’t talk to strangers, how would she make friends?

_“Strangers can be dangerous, dear.  I don’t want you to get hurt.”_

_“But--”_

_“Come along, Webby, let’s go.”_

A conversation that would repeat itself every time they went out until Webby turned eight and gave up.

Things got a little better a few months later when Grammy took her to the Money Bin.  The “don’t talk to strangers” rule was relaxed quite a bit--it turned out that most of the people who worked at the Money Bin weren’t strangers at all.  Sure, these people weren’t exactly her age, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t put Making Friends Plan A (and Plans B and C, if necessary) into effect.

It wasn’t long before everyone at the Money Bin knew her name.  Of course, some were much happier to see her than others.  

“Hi, I’m Webby!  Do you work here?  I like your shoes!”  

The duck working at the desk looked down at her feet in surprise.  “I’m not wearing shoes, but thanks?” she said.

Webby hardly noticed her response as she bounded over to the next desk.  “Hi, I’m Webby!  Do you work here?  Ooooh, I like your pen!”  Webby took it off the desk and drew a flower on her hand before continuing on to the next desk.

“Hi, I’m Webby!  Ooooh, what’s that?  Can I try it?” Forgetting the second part of step 2, Webby climbed onto the desk and started pushing buttons on the adding machine.  “Hey, this is fun!”

A pair of arms took hold of her and carried her to the doorway.

“Hi, I’m Webby!  Do you work here?  Where are we going?  Is this like a ride?  Ooh, or some sort of adventure?  Do you want to be my--oof!”  The arms dumped her outside the accounting room and slammed the door shut behind her.

Not to be deterred, Webby continued on.  The next door she came across was labeled with a few really big words that she didn’t bother to take the time to read.  

“Hi, I’m Webby!  Do you work here?  I like your hat!” she said to a tall chicken tinkering with some metal.

“Hmph,” the chicken said, turning away.  

Webby moved around to his other side.  “Whatcha makin’?  It looks really cool!”

“I don’t have time for children,” he said.

“That’s ok.  I’m not really a child.  I’m Webby!” the duckling introduced herself again.

“Right,” said the chicken, turning back the other way.

Webby followed again.  “What’s it going to do?” she asked.

“It’s a security robot prototype,” he said.

“What’s that mean?” asked Webby.

“It means it’s going to protect Mr. McDuck’s Money Bin,” he said.

“That little thing?  That’s so cool!  What does it do?  Does it shoot lasers?  Oh, oh, does it have a rocket launcher?”

Gyro Gearloose looked at the duckling before him and blinked.  No one had ever been so interested in his inventions before.  Mr. McDuck’s board all thought it was a waste of time, Mr. McDuck himself was indulgent at best, his father and grandfather had always been too busy with their own inventions and repairs to give him much attention, and his mother didn’t know the first thing about mechanics, so her praise was always superficial (that is, when she wasn’t yelling at him for inadvertently destroying the kitchen.  Again).  

A smile slowly grew on Gyro’s face as he started to explain, piece by piece, the prototype he was building (starting with what a prototype was).  The duckling (Webby, wasn’t it?) listened to him with rapt attention, asking all the right questions and even giving him some well-intentioned-but-childish-and-unusable (wait a second, maybe he _could_ do that…) suggestions.

And that was about the biggest compliment Gyro had ever been given.


	5. Fallen

“Alright, kids.  Be careful.  The trail here gets treacherous.  Many have fallen trying to find these ancient ruins.”

“You mean they were killed? By who? How? Do we have to watch out for poisoned darts coming out of the bushes?” Dewey asked.

“What? No! They fell off the side of the mountain!”

The kids peered off the edge of the trail, which, sure enough, ended in a sheer drop.

“All in favor of not telling Uncle Donald about walking along the side of a cliff?” Huey asked.

Four hands shot up.

“I thought we weren’t telling him about any of this,” Webby said, her hand raised.

“Well, yeah, but in case he finds out anyway, we make extra sure to leave this part out,” said Louie.

“And what if he still finds out about it?” asked Webby.

“He’ll probably goes ballistic and try to drown Uncle Scrooge in the swimming pool,” Dewey said with a shrug.

“Uncle Donald can throw a mean punch when he gets mad enough,” Louie said.

“Yeah.  You should have seen him at Dewey’s third grade parent-teacher conference,” Huey said.

“Hey!” Dewey said, punching his brother in the arm.

“She almost kicked him out of her class after that,” Louie said.

“Honestly, it probably would have been for the best,” Huey said.

“ _No_ , it wouldn’t have been,” Dewey protested.  “And she didn’t almost kick me out her class, there was just... _talk_ of me switching to another one.”

“Psh.  Same thing,” Louie said.  “Either way, you survived the third grade, so what’s the big deal?”

“Boys, focus!” Scrooge said.  “Keep an eye out for anything that looks like ancient runes or pictographs.  And don’t fall off the mountain!” he added, yanking Dewey away from the edge with his cane.

The group continued on, slowly, as the path continued to get narrower and narrower.  The triplets grabbed hands to make sure that none of them fell, and Dewey added Webby to their chain.  

“U-uncle Scrooge?  Don’t you think we should...turn back?” Huey asked.

“Turn back?  You don’t get to where I am by turning back, lad,” Scrooge said.

“What if I’d rather not die?” Huey said.

“Adventuring isn’t without its risks,” Scrooge replied.  “And neither is making money.”

At that moment, Louie’s foot slipped off the slide of the cliff, very nearly sending him tumbling down to the depths below.  If not for his brothers holding onto him…

The five adventurers watched the dislodged rocks as they fell in Louie’s place.  Louie’s heart was beating so hard that Dewey was almost certain he could feel it in his hand.  Either that, or that was his own pulse he was feeling.

“Alright, kids, turn around.  We’re heading back,” Scrooge said.

All the money in the world wasn’t worth the lives of these four kids.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My headcanon for Dewey is that he has ADHD and Donald has fought tooth and nail to make sure he was given the accommodations he needed (and that those accommodations, once put in his IEP, were actually implemented by his teachers). His third grade teacher was the type who didn’t believe that ADHD was a real thing, but after the school’s administration got wind that she wasn’t following the kid’s IEP, some extra training (and a reminder that not following a kid’s IEP is breaking the law), she shaped up. Also, Donald earned a permanent place on the district’s “parents whose conferences have to be attended by a third party (i.e. the principal or guidance counselor)” list. Though, to be fair, he’s a perfectly model parent if the teacher’s actually doing what they’re supposed to be doing. (Can you tell I have a bachelors degree in elementary education?)


	6. Water

Donald Duck had a very complicated relationship with water.  

All his life, he’d loved the water.  He loved looking at it, he loved swimming in it, and, most of all, he loved being on it in a boat or a ship.  As a young adult, he’d had two goals in life: to join the Navy and to live in a houseboat (preferably one of his own).  It took years of saving, but he finally achieved the latter goal.  Finally, he could be on the water all the time.  He could look out a window and there it was, right outside.  He could jump overboard and take a swim in it whenever he pleased.  And at night, it would rock him to sleep with its gentle waves.  

When he first got the houseboat, Della, who’d just found out she was going to be laying a couple of eggs, had joked that she wouldn’t be able to bring his nieces and/or nephews around to see him for a while.

“Looks like I won’t be able to bring them around for a while,” Della had said with a twinkle in her eye when he’d told her the news, a protective hand on her belly.

“What?  Why not?” Donald had asked.

“Because they won’t be able to swim yet, silly,” his sister had replied.  “What if they fall overboard?”

Donald had scoffed.  “They’re ducklings.  You throw them in the water and they swim.  Instinct.”

“That’s just an old wives’ tale.  Besides, I’m not going to risk it,” Della had said.

After Della disappeared and Donald took custody of the boys, this conversation had played itself in Donald’s mind on many sleepless nights.  Sure, she hadn’t been completely serious, but Donald couldn’t help but feel that she wouldn’t be too happy with her infant triplets living on a houseboat.  

Suddenly, the water that he had loved for so long now absolutely terrified him.

Naturally, Donald decided to babyproof the houseboat.  Outer doors would always be kept locked, windows would always be shut, and no kids allowed on deck without lifejackets.  At least until they were old enough to swim.  That was reasonable, right?

 

* * *

 

“I still don’t get why we have to wear lifejackets on deck now that the houseboat is in Uncle Scrooge’s swimming pool,” Dewey complained.

“I wonder if Uncle Donald would even let us swim in it if the houseboat wasn’t taking up the whole thing,” Louie said.

Huey sighed.  “He says he wants us to spend more time on the boat, but he’s not making it particularly...enjoyable.”

“Hey, guys!” Webby called from over by the lounge chairs.  “How’s the houseboat?”  
“Suffocating,” Louie said.  Huey elbowed him in the side.

“Can I join?” Webby asked.

“Sure, if you really want to,” Dewey said.  “I wouldn’t recommend it, though.”

“Uncle Donald will probably make you wear a lifejacket,” Huey added.

“That’s ok.  I know how to swim,” Webby said.  

“So can we,” Louie groaned.

“Yeah, he makes us wear these anyway,” Dewey said.

“He does realize we’re ducks, right?” said Webby, walking across the gangplank.  “I mean, you just throw us in the water as babies and we start swimming.”

“Uncle Donald says that’s an old wives’ tale,” Huey said.

Donald came out of the house part of the boat with a plate of raw burgers, quacking happily.  “How’s it going, boys?” he asked.  “Oh, hi, Webby.  Just a sec.”  He put the plate down next to the grill on the other end of the deck and popped back inside.  He emerged with a fourth lifejacket that, like the boys’, came up past her neck and squished into her cheeks once he pulled it over her head.  “Want a burger?”

Webby nodded, the lifejacket squeaking under the movement, and Donald went inside to grab another.

“You were not kidding about suffocating,” Webby said.

“Well, at least he’s happy,” Huey said.  “I think he misses us having our own space.”

“How exactly do you eat burgers in these things?” Webby said.

“I’m planning on going ashore once they’re ready,” Louie said.

“You can’t!” Huey said.  “Uncle Donald will be so upset.”

“What about me?  I thought we were done eating dinner in lifejackets when we moved into McDuck Manor!” Louie said.

“Yeah, I am kinda sick of the food getting stuck in my throat,” Dewey said.  “That hurts.”

“Fine,” Huey said.  “Maybe we can ask if we can make it a picnic on shore.  But that’s it.  If Uncle Donald says no, we’re eating in the lifejackets.”

The door opened again and Donald returned to his grill with the extra burger.

“Why can’t we just eat inside?” Webby asked, lowering her voice.  “He doesn’t make you wear them inside, does he?”

“Uncle Donald said he wanted to eat outside today because it’s nice out,” Huey said.

“Also the inside of the houseboat is still kinda burnt,” Dewey added.

“Alright, kids!  Burgers are ready!” Donald said, bringing them over.

“Uncle Donald?” Huey said.  “Can we have a picnic on shore?”

Donald looked at his nephews’ eager, squished faces.  “I don’t see why not,” he said.

So they did.


	7. Confusion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The wonderful Schnickledooger was inspired to continue this story to fill in some of the gaps about what happened before and after, so once you're done reading, go check it out!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12461136)

Dewey slowly opened his eyes, groaning as he became aware of the throbbing in his head.  Where...was he?  Dewey shut his eyes and slowly opened them again, hoping that would help his vision clear.  It didn’t.  The world remained fuzzy and dim, and he still didn’t have any idea of where he was.

He put his hand to his head again, trying to alleviate the pain.  He needed some Advil, and maybe an ice pack.  But something...didn’t quite feel right.  Dewey’s thoughts felt sluggish as he looked at his fingers.  They were covered in something dark and warm...kinda wet…

Oh.

That definitely wasn’t good.

“Dewey!  Dewey, lad, can you hear me!” came a muffled Scottish brogue.

“Uncle Scrooge?” Dewey said slowly.  “Where-where are you?”

“Dewey!  Are you there?”

“Yeah!  Yeah, I’m here!” Dewey said, promptly wincing at the loudness of his own voice.

“Good!  There was a bit of a cave-in, but we’ll get you get you out of there soon!” Scrooge said.

“O-ok!” Dewey said.  Then there was some quacking that sounded like it was probably Uncle Donald, but Dewey couldn’t understand any words.  That either meant that Uncle Donald was really angry, or Dewey had hit his head so hard he couldn’t understand him anymore, which...well, other people often complained that they had a hard time understanding Uncle Donald, but Dewey and his brothers never had, so that...that wouldn’t be good.  Life would be much harder if he couldn’t understand his uncle.

“If anything’s happened to him, Scrooge, I swear, I’ll--”

Oh, good.   _That_ was Uncle Donald, and _those_ were words, so Dewey hadn’t lost his ability to understand Uncle Donald after all.

Some more muffled talking that Dewey didn’t have the energy or focus to decipher, and then a whole bunch of _clunk, clunk, clunk._  Dewey rested his head on the wall and closed his eyes, trying to ease his aching head.

Wait.  Uncle Scrooge had said something about a cave-in.  Dewey didn’t remember being in a cave.  Actually, Dewey didn’t remember much of anything before waking up in the dark.  He hadn’t really thought about it yet.  But maybe...maybe not thinking about it was a good idea.  The thought of thinking that hard made his head hurt.

But...if there was a cave-in...were Huey and Louie ok?  He’d heard Uncle Scrooge and Uncle Donald, so they were probably ok.  They sounded ok, at least.  But were Huey and Louie trapped somewhere, too?  Or...worse?  And Webby...had Webby even been with them on this adventure?  Dewey had no idea.

You know what?  Forget all of this.  If Huey and Louie and Webby were in danger, Dewey certainly couldn’t help them.  And for the sake of his head, it was better not to worry about it.

The _clunk, clunk, clunk_ got closer and less muffled--but at the same time, separated by Dewey’s eyelids, they still felt far away.  

“Dewey!” cried Uncle Donald’s familiar voice.

Dewey cracked open his eyes and immediately shielded them from the bright light pouring in from the giant hole in the wall.  A dark Uncle-Donald-shaped shape rushed over to Dewey and knelt in front of him.

“Are you ok?” Donald asked, inspecting the cut on Dewey’s head.

“Can we go home, Unca Donald?” Dewey asked, holding out his arms.

Donald scooped him up.  “Of course, Dewey,” he said, carrying him out of the cave.  Dewey buried his head in his uncle’s shoulder to block out the light and missed the glare Donald gave Scrooge as he walked past.

“Are Huey and Louie ok?” Dewey mumbled.

“Yes, they’re fine.  They’re back at the plane with Launchpad and Webby,” Donald said.

“Good,” Dewey said, his body finally relaxing.  He allowed himself to be swept away by the darkness and quiet as he fell fast asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My headcanon for the boys is that, when they were little, they used to call Donald "Unca Donald" (like they do in the comics), but they grew out of it as they got older. When they're sick or hurt or scared, however, they'll often revert back to it.
> 
> Also, shout out to creative license for allowing me to give Dewey a severe concussion and treating it more like a mild one. Then again, since the story ends before they get to any sort of diagnosis or treatment, I suppose you can imagine the aftermath however you'd like.
> 
> Feedback for this story in particular would be very much appreciated as I'm not sure how well I accomplished what I set out to do.
> 
> [And don't forget to check out Schnickledooger's continuation of this chapter!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12461136)


	8. Impasse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A follow up to day five's "Fallen."

The ducks had backtracked far enough that they were able to walk two-by-two.  Dewey was up front with Webby, who had lead them most of the way back so far.  Huey and Louie were behind them, the latter on the inside of the path, still holding tightly to his brother’s hand.  Scrooge now made up the rear, calling out instructions and questions to Webby up front.

“What do you see now, lass?” he asked.

“Not a whole lot.  The path keeps going, there are a few rocks...oh!  I think we’re almost at the part where the path widens again!”

“Good.  Keep going.  And be careful!”

The ducks continued on until the path widened, giving them a little more space.

“All ride, kids.  Let’s stop a minute and regroup,” Scrooge said.

“Can’t we just keep going?” Louie asked.  “Before something else bad almost happens?”

“We just need to plan a little.  I’ll take up the front.  According to the map, we should be about two-thirds of the way back to the plane.  We should--”  A sudden rumbling cut him off.  As the ground began to shake, Scrooge yelled, “Take cover!” and pushed the kids towards the side of the mountain, covering them with his own body.  Almost immediately, rocks began falling around them.

“Rockslide!” Huey yelped.

“Shield your heads and look down!” Scrooge commanded.  The five ducks stayed that way until the rocks finally stopped falling.

“Is everyone alright?” Scrooge asked.  He was answered by a chorus of yeses.

“Um, Uncle Scrooge?” Dewey said.  “We’re blocked in.”

“Blow me bagpipes!” Scrooge said, looking at the pile of rocks that blocked them from the rest of the path.  “This _is_ a problem.”

“What are we going to do?” asked Louie.

“We could climb over it,” Webby suggested.

“No!  That’s much too risky!” Scrooge said.  “One false move and the whole pile could come crashing down.”

“Then how are we gonna get back?” Louie asked, a touch of fear creeping into his voice.

Scrooge pulled his satellite phone out of his pocket.  “Not to worry!  I’ll just call Launchpad and--”  He looked at the phone and put his face in his hand.  “And _somebody_ neglected to charge the thing on our way over.”  Scrooge sighed and put the phone back in his pocket.  “I swear, if we ever get back, firing Launchpad is the _first_ thing I’m going to do.”

“What now?” Huey asked.

Scrooge walked over to the edge of the cliff.  “D’you think it’d be a problem if we threw the rocks off the side of the mountain?”

Dewey shrugged, Huey started to say, “Actually…”, and Louie said, “Nope!” and started grabbing rocks from the pile blocking their way and throwing them over the cliff.

“I don’t think--” Webby began as Scrooge joined his nephew in clearing the path.  “But what if--”  

Dewey joined in, too.  

Webby and Huey looked at each other and shrugged.  

“Forget it,” Huey said and joined his family.  Webby did the same.  Besides, they were in the middle of a remote desert.  The chances of there being anybody at the bottom of the mountain were...relatively small.  Probably.

Unfortunately, the pile of rocks was so big that, after two hours’ worth of work, they had only made a small dent.

“Maybe we should try climbing it,” Webby puffed.  “If one of us can get past, we can go get help.”

Scrooge shook his head.  “We don’t know what the rockslide did to the rest of the mountain.  It could be treacherous.”

“We’re gonna die out here!” Louie wailed.

“We’re not gonna _die_ ,” Huey said.  “Eventually, someone will come looking for us.  And I’m sure the Junior Woodchucks Guidebook has some stuff about how to survive until then, and maybe it even has directions on how to make a flare gun or a radio so people can find us.”

“A flare gun?” Webby said, reaching into her backpack.  “You mean like this?”  

The four other ducks stared at her in disbelief.

“You had a flare gun the _whole time_?” Louie shouted.  He grabbed it from her and pointed it up in the air.

“Whoa, lad,” Scrooge said, taking the gun from him.  “Shield your eyes,” he said.  He pointed it up in the air and fired.  The bright flare sailed up near the clouds before fizzling out.

“There.  Now let’s just hope that that idiot of a pilot know to come get us,” Scrooge said.

The five ducks waited anxiously, hoping that Launchpad had received (and understood) their signal.  Soon, they heard the roaring of a jet engine, and shortly the plane they’d arrived in was hovering in the air next above them.  A rope ladder dropped down and they gratefully climbed up it.

“Good thing I brought the Harrier, hey, Mr. McD?” said Launchpad from the cockpit.  “Did you find those ruins?”

“Just get us out of here, Launchpad,” Scrooge said.  “It’s time we head home.”


	9. Strings

Webby looked at her collection of yarn and string.  She had three spools of black (she kept misplacing them).  Then there was a number of skeins encompassing just about every color in the rainbow (Granny had spent four years trying to teach Webby how to knit with moderate success until they decided to switch to crochet, which suited Webby much better).  To the left was a small pile of purple and pink (they  _ were _ her favorite colors, after all) and a skein of novelty furry yarn ( _ much  _ harder to use than you’d think).  Finally, there was a collection of metallic yarn from when Webby had decided to crochet herself a suit of armor (an undertaking that had made a lot more sense when she wasn’t allowed outside of the Manor).  

Webby carefully selected a skein of yarn, cut off a length, and attached it to her board.  She added a label with a matching-colored marker and stepped back, happy tears in her eyes, to admire her handiwork.

A golden string now attached Mr. McDuck’s picture to her own, captioned “honorary niece.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why does Webby prefer crocheting of knitting? Simple: because I do.


	10. Honor

Donald sighed, looking over his credit card statement for the month.  Years of paying little more than the minimum amount left him with an overly large total at the bottom of the paper.  Living at Scrooge’s Manor definitely had its drawbacks, but he couldn’t deny that it was really gonna help out their financial situation.  He no longer had to pay for dock space to put the houseboat, most meals came out of Scrooge’s kitchen, and utilities were courtesy of McDuck Manor.  If Donald could get himself a steady job (heck, at this point, he’d take polishing Scrooge’s coins all day), he could put the majority of his paycheck towards finally paying this thing off.

“What is that?” Scrooge asked, looking over Donald’s shoulder.

Donald quacked indignantly.  “This is my _private_ financial information!” he said, covering the page with his hands.

Scrooge snatched it from him.  “If I’ve taught ye anything, it’s to never use credit cards to spend money you don’t have!  Which, in your case, means to never use credit cards at all.”  He looked it over.  “And at that interest rate, too!  This is highway robbery!”

Donald snatched the paper back.  “Sure, that’s easy to say when you haven’t had to think about whether you have enough money for groceries or rent since before the telephone was invented.”

Scrooge shook his head.  “A man never spends money he doesnae have, even when he’s at his lowest.”

Donald’s face turned bright red and he exploded in unintelligible quacking.  “Try having three growing mouths to feed!” he shouted.  “Three hungry faces asking whether they’re going to eat dinner that night because they know you haven’t had a job in a month!  Then tell me you wouldn’t use a credit card to pay for food that you know you’ll never be able to pay off!”  Donald took a deep breath.  “I’m going to leave before I do something I’ll regret,” he said and left to go to the houseboat.

Once he was gone, Scrooge took another look at his nephew’s credit card bill.  Then, he went to his office to make a few phone calls.

* * *

 

Dinner that night would have been tense if the kids didn’t have so much to say about what they’d done that day.

“And then Webby popped out of the _tree_!  Like, not the branches, but this giant hole in the trunk!  And she said--she said--”

“‘Time to die!’” Dewey finished for his ever-so-slightly-younger brother before all four kids dissolved into helpless laughter.

“Like, she says that she’s never seen an action movie, but everything she does is like.  Straight out of _James Bond_ meets _The Fast and the Furious_ ,” Huey said.

“And then the part where Louie screamed bloody murder because I shot him in the forehead!” Webby said.

“You startled me!” Louie protested, but he was still laughing.

“All right, kids.  I’m glad you had fun, but finish up your dinners so you can finish your homework,” said Mrs. Beakley.

Scrooge snuck a glance at Donald, who’d been avoiding looking in his direction the whole meal (his nephew had even eaten his baked potato dry because the butter was in front of him).  Scrooge loved Donald, and he didn’t even mind his temper (not only did he see it mirrored in himself, it was almost like having Hortense back around), but the _grudges_.  Well, Scrooge supposed he couldn’t really complain.  The list of grudges he himself still held was longer than he’d like to admit.

Soon enough, the kids left (still laughing) to put their plates away, and Mrs. Beakley began to clear the table.  Donald stood, too, ready to clean up his own place and most likely retreat to his houseboat for the night.

“Donald?  Can I have a word with you?” Scrooge asked.

Donald put his plate back down and looked at his uncle expectantly.

Scrooge pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket.  “Here,” he said, giving it to Donald.

Donald’s brow furrowed.  “What’s this?” he asked, unfolding the paper.

“I made a few phone calls today and got ye a better interest rate on that card.  I also got them to lower the debt a little, seeing as the rate was much higher than it ever should have been.”

Donald’s eyes almost popped out of his head when he saw the new rate and total.  “I, uh, thank you.  Thank you, Uncle Scrooge.”

Scrooge shrugged it off.  “Eh, it’s nothing.  Good night, now,” he said, leaving his nephew to put his own plate away and get ready for bed.  What Scrooge hadn’t told him was that, in addition to getting the credit card company to forgive some of the debt, he’d made a sizable payment and then added his name to the card to help secure a rock-bottom interest rate.  With any luck, Donald wouldn’t read the fine print closely enough to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon of the day: Scrooge himself never uses credit cards, nor does he ever take out loans; therefore, his credit score is absolutely terrible. Luckily, his name is enough to open those doors that a poor credit score would otherwise be closed to him.
> 
> In case you don't know, Hortense is Donald's (and Della's) mother, whose temper rivals that of both her son and her husband (you can read a few panels showcasing their relationship (and respective tempers) here: http://radarsteddybear.tumblr.com/post/164485691495/a-love-story-for-the-ages). Hortense is also the name of Scrooge's ill-tempered horse back from his cowboy days, affectionately named after his similarly-tempered sister ("The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck").


	11. Seasons

_Summer_

_By Dewey Duck_

No school no school no

School no school no school no school

No school no school FREE

 

_Fall_

_By Huey Duck_

Leaves fall to become

Nutrients for next years’ life

The food chain lives on

 

_Winter_

_By Louie Duck_

How many people

can I sell hot cocoa to

to keep us all warm?

 

_Spring_

_By Webby Vanderquack_

Snow melts, weather’s warm

Kids come back outside to play

But I stay inside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea is that these are all haikus they had to write for school, but honestly it's probably more like if their adult selves each wrote a haiku to express who they were at age 10.


	12. Instrument

“No more Mexican music!” Dewey groaned.

“We’re going to _Mexico_.  We have to get in the spirit!” Huey said.

“Yeah, Dewey, what do you have against Mexico?” Louie said, earbuds in.

Dewey groaned.  “Uncle Donald, make it stop!”

“While I do love Mexican music, Huey, I think it’s time we switch to something else for a while,” Donald said.

“Awww,” Huey said, turning off his boombox.  

Donald turned on the radio to a Mexican station playing “Ay, Jalisco, no te rajes!”

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Dewey screamed.

“How many times have I told you?  No screaming in the car!” Donald said.

“Sorry, Uncle Donald,” Dewey said.  Louie elbowed him in the side.

They rode in silence for a little while.  

Until Huey slowly pulled a Mexican vihuela and began to play.

“No!  No!  No!  No!  No!  No!  No!” Dewey said, banging his head on the car window.

“Dewey!  Don’t do that!” Donald said.  “Huey!  Put that thing away!”

Huey did.  “But I’m bored.  It’s too quiet in here.”  He thought for a moment.  “Ninety-nine bottles of milk on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of milk, take one down, pass it around, ninety-eight bottles of milk on the wall!”

“NO!” Dewey shouted, while at the same time Louie yelled “Not again!”

“Huey!  You know that song is absolutely forbidden on road trips!” Donald said.

“But it’s so quiet in here!  This is a _road trip_ ; we should be _bonding_.”

“Singing never-ending songs is _not_ bonding,” Louie said.

“It’s not a never-ending song!” Huey protested.

“Huey, aren’t there any songs that you learned at Junior Woodchuck camp that you can sing instead?” Donald said, shooting Dewey and Louie Looks when they groaned in protest.

“Oh, yeah!  Here’s one!”  Huey took out the vihuela again and began to play.  “Little red caboose, chug chug chug, little red--”

“How’d you learn how to play that thing so fast?” Louie asked.

“YouTube,” Huey said.  “Now if you don’t mind?”

Dewey started banging his head on the window again.

“Little red caboose, chug chug chug, little red caboose, chug chug chug, little red caboose behind the train, train, train, train.  Smokestack on its back, back, back back, running ‘round, the track, track, track, track.  Little red caboose behind the train, WOO WOO…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Ay, Jalisco, no te rajes!" has the same tune as "The Three Caballeros" (in fact, the last verse Panchito sings is from that song).
> 
> "Little Red Caboose" is a song I learned at Girl Scout Camp. It's one of those songs that has motions attached to certain lyrics, and each time you repeat the song, you take out the lyrics that go with one of the motions and just do the motions (sort of like "BINGO"). So that'll keep Huey busy for a little while...
> 
> I'm definitely going to continue this one, so stay tuned sometime this month for a Part 2.


	13. Foolish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part II of yesterday's "Instrument."

Donald sighed as he put aside yet another book.  This was hopeless.  After 3 days in the Mexico City Explorer Society’s library, Donald was pretty sure it was safe to say that there was no legend of any Aztec flute.  It was foolish to keep researching it.

“This one says something about a...music god?” Huey was saying, squinting at yet another book.  

Dewey groaned.  “Can we stop now?  This is too much like school.”

“Uncle Scrooge is paying us $3.00 an hour plus expenses to Mexico to find information about this flute.  The longer we look at these books, the more money we make,” said Louie, on his phone and not actually doing any research.

Suddenly, they heard noises coming from outside.  Tires were squealing, people were shouting--and were those gunshots?

Before Donald could stop them, his nephews rushed outside to see what the commotion was all about.  

“Boys!  Get back inside!” Donald said, following, but he froze when he saw what was going on.

A red rooster was riding down the road on a horse, pistols blazing, and yelling up a storm.

“Is he a bandito?” Dewey asked.

“No,” said Donald, picking his jaw off the ground.  He looked at Louie, who had a certain spark in his eye.  “ _Don’t_ get any ideas!  He’s not a bandito!”

“How do you know?” asked Huey.

Donald ducked as one of the guns went off in their direction.  “Get back inside!” he said again, pushing the boys into the library doorway.  He then turned on his heels and marched right up to the horse.

“ _What_ are you _doing?_ ” Donald screamed up at the rooster.

“Donal’!  My good friend!”  The rooster dismounted from the horse, holstered his pistols, and vigorously shook his hand.  “It is so good to see you!  How are you doing?”

“Panchito!  You can’t shoot your guns everywhere like that!  There are kids here!  People could get hurt!”

“Oh, do not worry!  They are filled with blanks!  Very safe!” Panchito said.

“Blanks?” Donald said, eyeing the holstered pistols suspiciously.  “Still, that was a very foolish thing to do.”

“But I am celebrating!” Panchito said.

“Uncle Donald?” Huey said, poking his head out the library door.  “Who is that?”

“Do you know him?” asked Louie.

“You know a bandito?” Dewey said.

“He’s not a bandito!” Donald said.  “Boys, this is Panchito Pistoles.  Panchito, these are my nephews: Huey, Dewey, and Louie.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you,” Panchito said, shaking their hands just as vigorously as he'd shaken their uncle's.  “What are you all doing in Mexico?”

Donald resisted the urge to roll his eyes.  “Doing research for our Uncle Scrooge.”

“Ah,” said Panchito.  “It doesn’t look to be going so well, no?”

“Nope,” Huey agreed.

“So what are you celebrating?” Dewey said.  “Did you steal something good?”

Donald slapped his hand to his forehead.  “For the last time, he is not a bandito!”

Panchito laughed.  “No, little niño,” he said.  “I have just found the lost treasure of the explorer Don Juan Francisco Hernandez Sebastian Cortes de Vaca y Narváez.”

“Treasure?” Louie said.

“Cool!” Huey said.

“You’re just like Uncle Scrooge!” Dewey said.

“Eh, the only trouble is that it is buried away in his house,” Panchito said.  “And it’s said to be haunted.  I will be heading that way tomorrow.”

“A haunted house?” Huey said.

“Can we go, too, Uncle Donald?  Please?” Dewey asked.

Panchito’s eyes lit up.  “Yes!  You must come with me!  It’ll be just like old times!” he said.  “And you go treasure hunting all the time with your Tío Scrooge, no?  You are already like an expert!”

Donald crossed his arms.  “Well, I wouldn’t exactly call myself an expert,” he said.  “But what the heck.  It’s not like we’re getting anywhere here.”

The boys cheered.  

“Next stop, the house of Don Juan Francisco Hernandez Sebastian Cortes de Vaca y Narváez!” Panchito said.  He looked at his friends critically.  “But first, we must find you some transportation.  I do not think that Señior Martinez can carry all five of us.”

“I’ve got my car back at the hotel,” Donald said.

“Perfect!  We will take Donal’s car!” Panchito declared, getting back up on his horse.  “Which way is your hotel?”

“That way,” Donald said, pointing.

“Can I ride with you on your horse?” Dewey said.

“Oooh!  Ooooh!  Can I?” Louie said.

“How about me?” said Huey.

Panchito laughed.  “I do not think that Señior Martinez can carry all of you at once, but you can take turns!” he said.  “You can be first.”  Panchito pulled Dewey up onto the horse with him.

“Yeah!  Woo-hoo!  Ride ‘em, cowboy!” Dewey shouted as they started towards the hotel.

Donald couldn’t help but crack a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's an episode of the original DuckTales ("Lost Crown of Genghis Khan") where Scrooge is a member of the Duckburg Explorers Society; I headcanon that the society's members pool their resources to maintain things like a library (focused on treasure-hunting-related books and texts, of course) for its members. And if Duckburg's got its own Explorers Society (and library), what's to say that other cities don't have them as well? (Also, it was a lot easier than figuring out what other library they might have gone to).
> 
> In the comics (at least the comics I've read), Scrooge paid Donald (and sometimes the boys) $0.30 an hour to do anything from accompanying him on adventures to polishing the coins in his money bin; assuming those comics took place in 1947-ish (the year that, according to Don Rosa's "The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck," Scrooge rekindled his relationship with his family), that's about $3.44 adjusted for inflation. I decided to round down to give me a nice round number comparable to Scrooge's classic thirty cents an hour.


	14. Haunted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part III of "Instrument" and "Foolish."

The house was smaller than the kids expected it to be.  There was a small living room with some rickety chairs and a fireplace that extended into an even smaller kitchen, a tiny vestibule holding a ladder leading up to a tiny attic room with a ceiling so low not even the boys could stand up straight inside, and about inch-thick coating of dust on every surface.  On the mantle above the fireplace was a small, hazy portrait, and there was an equally hazy (and equally small) mirror hanging next to the ladder.  The kitchen contained a few banged-up pots and pans.  And...that was it.

It turned out that they needed the moonlight to find the treasure (and the ghosts weren’t supposed to come out until nightfall, anyway), so the quintet headed to a restaurant in town (complete with entertainment!) to pass the time until sunset.

“Are you sure it’s a good place to bring kids?” Donald had said.

“Of course!  I would never suggest we go to a place that’s not for them!” Panchito had said.  “They’ve even got an early show!”

“What kind of a show?” Donald said.

“Some singer.  I did not see the name.  All I saw was that it wasn’t,” Panchito drew a very shapely shape in the air. 

* * *

 

“So how exactly do you two know each other?” asked Louie after they’d gotten their food.

“That’s kind of a long story,” Donald started.

“I was his birthday present!” Panchito said.

“You were his _what_?” Huey asked as Dewey choked on his soda.

“His birthday present!  Many many years ago, I got to show your Tío Donal’ all around Mexico on my flying sarape.  Ah, yes.  It was a fun time, eh, Donald’?”  Panchito nudged him in the side.

Donald felt his face start to grow a little warm.  “It was.  But that was a very long time ago.”

Panchito sighed.  “This is almost like old times, no?  We’re just missing José.”

“Yeah,” Donald agreed.

“Who’s José?” said Dewey said.

“Another friend.  He showed me around Brazil a few times, and he was with us when Panchito gave us his tour of Mexico.  Together, we were like--like the three caballeros,” Donald said.

“‘Like’ the three caballeros?  No, no, Donal’--we _are_ The Three Caballeros,” Panchito said.

Just then, the band started to play and the curtain went up to reveal a green parrot dressed in a snazzy suit and bowtie.

“That’s José!” Donald said, his eyes bugging out of his head.

“And so it is!  Eee-haw!” Panchito said, pulling out his pistols and shooting them into the air.  Donald ducked, throwing his arms over his head.  Sure, Panchito had said his pistols were loaded with blanks, but instinct was strong.

“Donal’!  Panchito!  Is it really you?” cried José, jumping off the stage and running to their table.

“Of course it is!” Panchito said, finally putting his guns away so he could greet his friend with one of his patented handshakes.

“But what are you doing here?” said José.

“We are looking for treasure!” Panchito said.  “But what are you doing here in Méjico instead of Brazil?”

José shrugged.  “I go where the jobs are, amigos.  And right now, the jobs are here.”

 _“Where is that parrot?”_ said an angry voice from backstage.

“But not for very long!” José said.  “I will see you after the show, yes?”

“Does the show end before sunset?” Donald said.

“Sim!  The evening show has more,” José drew a very shapely shape in the air.

“Perfect!  We will see you later!”  Panchito gave José another handshake.

_“Carioca!”_

“Aye aye aye!  I will see you later!”  José ran back to the stage.

“The Three Caballeros, back together again!” Panchito said.  “It’ll be just like old times!”  

“Yeah.  Old times,” Donald said, a smile creeping onto his face.

* * *

 

“Ok, but since when did Uncle Donald have friends?” Dewey asked as they drove back to the (supposedly) haunted house of Don Juan Francisco Hernandez Sebastian Cortes de Vaca y Narváez.

“You know, I thought I saw some green and red in Webby’s Donald file…” Huey said.

“I thought that was just us,” Louie said.

“Ah ha!  We have arrived!” said Panchito, hopping out over the side of Donald’s little red convertible.  Everyone else followed once Donald had stopped the car.

“And you say this house, she is haunted?” José said.

“According to the legend, sí,” said Panchito.

“All right!” Dewey said, running towards the house.

“Not so fast!” Donald said, yanking him back by his shirt collar.  “We can’t just run in like that.  We need a plan.”

“Yes, Donal’ is right,” José said.  “You say you have seen the inside of the house?”

“Sí,” Panchito said, pulling a piece of paper out of his hat.  “It says here that, when the clock strikes 8:48, the light of the moon will shine in through the window and show where the treasure is hidden.”

“Wait, 8:48?” said Huey, snatching the paper from him.  “When was this written?”

“1854.”

“Then don’t we have to adjust this for standardized time?” Huey said, taking out his Junior Woodchuck Guidebook.  “According to the Guidebook, American and Canadian railroads adopted standard time in 1883, and the Standard Time Act of 1918 standardized America’s timezones, and I know we’re in Mexico--”

“Do not worry, mi amigo,” Panchito said, taking the paper back.  “I have already fixed for that!”

“Cool,” said Louie.  “Then let’s go in.”

“Wait!” Donald said.  “If anything happens and we get separated, we’ll meet back at the hotel, ok?”

“Yes, Uncle Donald,” the boys chorused.

The group went to the front door of the house.

“Wh-who wants to go in first?” Dewey asked, suddenly not quite so eager as he had been a few minutes ago.

“How about Panchito?” José suggested.  “It’s his treasure hunt, after all.”

“No, no, no, that would make me a rude host!” Panchito said.  “How about--”

Panchito was interrupted by the sound of Donald opening the door and promptly falling flat on his face after tripping over the doorframe.

“That’s our Donal’!  So brave and eager to jump into adventure!” José said.

Huey, Dewey, and Louie exchanged a look as they helped their uncle up.

“Well, what are you waiting for, Donal’?” asked Panchito.  “Let’s go!”

The group split up, looking around the small house for every place the moonlight might shine in.

“Where did you say the light was going to come in?” Huey asked.

“Ah, that, I’m not so sure,” Panchito said.

“Do you get the feeling we’re being watched?” Dewey asked.

“You’re just jumpy ‘cause it’s supposed to be haunted,” Louie said.

Huey stiffened as he felt a cold chill run up his spine.  “Did anyone just stick their cold hand up my back?”

No one was close enough to have done so.

“Wak!” Donald said.  “Who did that?”

“Did what?” asked José.

Donald smacked Panchito’s hand, as he was the closest to him.  “Don’t touch me!” he said.

“But Donal’,” Panchito said.  “I did not touch you.”

“Then who--” Donald thought he saw something in the reflection of the glass on the portrait on the mantle.  “Never mind.  Let’s just keep looking so we can get out of here.”

A crash came from the kitchen.

“Boys!  Are you all right?” Donald asked.

“We’re in here,” Louie said from the tiny room containing the ladder.

Donald, José, and Panchito looked at the kitchen.

“I’m sure it was just a little mouse or something,” José said.

“We should probably check,” Panchito said.

“Yeah,” Donald agreed.  Slowly, the three crept into the kitchen to find that the pots and pans, which had previously been in a neat pile

“Hey, what’s that?” Dewey asked, peering into a dusty mirror hanging on the wall.

“What’s what?” asked Huey.

“It looks like there’s something--”

“BOO!” said a deep, unfamiliar voice, attached to a translucent face popping out of the mirror.

“AHHHHHHHHH!” the three boys screamed.

“What’s--” Donald began from the kitchen doorway, but was cut off by his three boys bolting past on their way to the front door.  He looked back the way they came from and saw a blue-tinged, translucent figure floating a few inches off the ground.

The other two Caballeros cowered behind their third.

“Donal’?  Is that--” Panchito said.

“I do not think I want to know what that is,” José said.

Donald stared at the figure, unimpressed.  He then checked his watch.  “Well, it’s 8:52.  Looks like we missed this moonlight thing.”  He turned and walked out of the house, José and Panchito following closely behind.  The three of them got into the car, where Huey, Dewey, and Louie were already hiding on the floor in the back seat, and they headed back towards town.


	15. Intimacy

The adventure was over.  They’d found the lost city, they’d taken the treasure Mr. McDuck wanted, they’d made it safely back to the airplane, and, even with Launchpad’s penchant for crashing, up in the air, they were all about as safe as could be.

So why couldn’t Webby stop shaking?

She was curled up in a seat in the back of the plane, trying to process what had happened and calm herself down.  They’d almost _died_.  Mr. McDuck had almost been sucked up by some ball-pit level quicksand.  Dewey had tripped and almost fallen into a pit of lava and just about took his brothers with him--if it weren’t for Webby grabbing onto Louie’s hoodie (and Mr. Duck then grabbing onto her, and Mr. McDuck onto him), the three of them would have been completely vaporized.  And Mr. Duck, with his insistence on going first, had set off just about every booby trap in the city that still worked (and a few that didn’t), and they’d almost killed him.  And now they were all laughing and joking up front, and that was ok, but...didn’t they realize they had almost _died_?

“How are you doing back here, kiddo?”

Webby looked up to find Mr. Duck standing in the aisle next to her.

“Oh, I’m fine, Mr. Duck,” Webby said.  “Just fine.”

“Mind if I sit down?” Mr. Duck said.

“Oh, sure,” said Webby, more than a little startled.  Mr. Duck took the seat next to hers.

“That was some adventure,” Mr. Duck said.

“Yeah,” Webby said, her voice shaking.

“Definitely more dangerous than most.”

“You said it.”

“It’s ok to be scared,” Mr. Duck said.

“I wasn’t scared!” Webby said.

“I was,” said Mr. Duck.  “Of course, this trip doesn’t really compare to the time Uncle Scrooge wanted to find the Golden Apples of the Hesperides.  I couldn’t stop shaking for a week after that one.”

Webby shoved her hands under her lap as tears welled in her eyes.  Why did she suddenly feel like she was about to cry _now_ , of all times, when Mr. Duck, _the Donald Duck_ , was talking to her?

Donald looked thoughtful for a moment.  “You know,” he began, “I’ve been thinking.  Mr. Duck is so...formal.  Why don’t you call me Uncle Donald instead?”

The tears that Webby had been fighting back suddenly spilled over.  She launched herself at Mr. _\--Uncle_ Donald and wrapped her arms around him.  Donald returned the hug, holding her the same why he used to hold the boys when they came to him in the middle of the night with nightmares.  Donald had already known that his family had grown that day not-so-long-ago when he and the boys moved into McDuck Manor, but it was nice to make it a little more official.


	16. Defiance

“No, you cannot go out tonight,” Donald said.

“But it’s Friday!” Louie said.

“I don’t care.  You didn’t finish your homework for Tuesday, Wednesday, or today, so you can’t go out.”

“But I already told them I could go!”

“Then text them that you can’t.”

“But Uncle Donald--”

“No buts!” Donald said.  “Now go start your homework for this weekend!”

Louie turned to go upstairs with a small growl of frustration.  “I thought things would be different once we moved in with Uncle Scrooge.”

Donald stood, arms crossed, as he watched his nephew climb the stairs to his room.

Once there, Louie flopped down on his bed.  It wasn’t fair.  He didn’t even want to do anything bad--he just wanted to get ice cream with some of the guys from school.  What was wrong with that?  Sure, he hadn’t finished the majority of his homework this week--and, yeah, ok, he hadn’t even started it on Thursday--but why did Uncle Donald have to punish him for it  _ now _ ?  Why couldn’t he wait until tomorrow or Sunday when he  _ didn’t _ have plans?

So many of Uncle Donald’s rules had been relaxed once they moved into the Manor, Louie thought that life would be different.  And, ok, in a lot of ways, it was, but ever since school had started up again, it was just like living back on the houseboat (well, except for the fact that Launchpad drove them home from school multiple times a week, but that didn’t really count).

Louie looked out the window.  He could almost see the ice cream parlor where he was supposed to meet his friends.  He supposed he should probably text them sooner rather than later so they wouldn’t bother waiting for him…

Or he could escape down the tree right outside his window.

No, he couldn’t do that...right?  That would be wrong.  Sure, the Manor was big enough that no one would probably ever know, and he’d just be going out for ice cream with his friends, so nothing bad would happen, but...

Louie could almost imagine the tiny Louie-angel and the tiny Louie-devil sitting on his shoulders.

_ ‘There’s no reason you shouldn’t have a social life.  And as big as your family is now, it doesn’t count as a social life.’ _

_ ‘But what if Uncle Donald discovers you’re gone?  He’d be worried sick!’ _

_ ‘No one’s gonna find out.  This place is so big, Scrooge himself probably still gets lost in it.  If someone can’t find you, they’ll just assume you’re somewhere else in the mansion and drop it.’ _

_ ‘Uncle Donald has more than enough things to worry about already.  You shouldn’t add yourself to the list.’ _

_ ‘Uncle Donald’s been stifling ever since you moved in with him.  It’s time you left the nest a little, learned responsibility yourself, firsthand.’ _

_ ‘After Uncle Donald’s done being worried, he might turn that famous temper of his onto you.’ _

Louie shuddered.  He’d be lying if he said he’d never thought about what might happen if Uncle Donald got  _ that _ angry at him (or his brothers, for that matter).  But tiny Louie-devil had a pretty good point…

Louie’s fists clenched.  You know what?  He was going to go out and get ice cream with his friends.  Uncle Donald would never know he was gone

Louie opened the window.  One of the weirdest things about moving into McDuck Manor was that the windows didn’t have screens.  Apparently, that was a European thing, but Scrooge probably predated window screens anyway.  Besides, he’d probably saved a whole $100 by not screening the windows.

He reached out for the tree branch and grabbed it with surprising ease.  He swung onto the branch, momentarily lost his balance, and then shimmied towards the trunk.  Louie had never been a tree climbing kid--it’s pretty hard to be when you live on a houseboat docked to a pier--but he managed to slide down the tree with only a few scrapes.  

Heart pounding, he ran towards the front gates.  Laughter bubbled up inside of him, escaping in short bursts between breaths.  He was free!  Free to do whatever he wanted!  Free from Uncle Donald’s tyrannical rule!  Free to--

Was this really such a good idea?

Yes.  Yes it was.  Besides, it was much too late to go back, and that ice cream was calling his name.

Louie slipped out of the front gates (easy, when you had the fob) and walked towards the bus stop.

* * *

“Bye, guys!”  Louie waved at his friends before turning to walk the other way towards his bus stop.  Sneaking out was definitely, 100%  _ worth it _ .  Louie should really do this more often.

Louie whistled as he waited for the bus.  He glanced sharply to the left as he thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye.  Ok, sure, it was definitely a little later than he’d planned on being out, but that was fine.  There wasn’t a single text message or missed call from Uncle Donald.  He’d be home before he knew it.

Louie looked again as a shadow flew through his peripheral vision. 

“H-hello?” he said.  “Is anybody there?”

Nobody answered.

Louie laughed to himself.  See?  Nothing to worry about.  It was probably just light from the cars on the next road over.  Definitely nothing to--

He heard a rustle in the bushes behind the bus stop and whipped around.

“I know you’re in there!” he shouted.

Still no answer.

Louie’s nerves must be catching up to him.  That must be it.  Why would anybody be hiding around a bus stop at night?  That was just ridiculous.

Another shadowed passed through the corner of his vision and Louie could have sworn he heard a  _ whoosh _ .

All right.  Ok.  How about, instead of waiting for the bus, he walked home?  Louie could use the exercise, anyway.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and set off at a brisk pace.  And then an owl hooted, which would actually be kind of cool if it wasn’t so late and Louie wasn’t so alone.  Then maybe Louie saw another shadow move, he couldn’t really tell, and, in retrospect, it was probably a tree blowing in the wind, and then he felt something fly at his head, which  _ might _ have been a piece of paper or a plastic bag, but Louie was almost certain it was a bat, and suddenly running seemed like a  _ much  _ better idea.

Louie ran harder and faster than he ever had in his life.  He ran so fast that tears came to his eyes and he could hardly catch his breath.  Oh jeez, was that another bat?  Since when did Duckburg have so many bats?  They didn’t even have any caves.  Thank goodness, Louie could see the Manor now; he was  _ almost there _ and--that was another bat flying past, Louie just  _ knew  _ it.  It was gonna give him rabies or turn him into a vampire (Huey’s voice echoed in his head, telling him that vampire bats weren’t actually vampires).  Oh, Louie was sorry, sorry that he hadn’t done his homework this week, sorry that he’d snuck out.  He’d never do it again, promise, as long as he lived--

And just like that, Louie was at the gates of McDuck Manor.

He used his fob to open them, not caring that they made noise and probably set off some sort of alert back up at the house.  He slipped back onto Scrooge’s property and waited, practically vibrating his feathers off, for the gate to close before bolting to the house.  He switched gears and slowly inserted his key into the lock and turned it before slowly, slowly opening the door just enough so he could slip in.  Keeping the handle turned, he slowly closed it again (good thing Uncle Scrooge kept all the hinges well-oiled) and turned the lock--

“I thought your uncle forbid you from going out tonight.”

Louie jumped about three feet into the air, a yelp tearing itself out of his throat.

“What?  No, I was just...checking the weather!  For a...science project!” Louie said, trying desperately to regain his composure.

“Right,” Mrs. Beakley said.  Her eyes narrowed and she moved closer.  “Don’t let it happen again.”  She turned on her heals and returned into the depths of the mansion.

Louie breathed a huge sigh of relief and went upstairs.  As he walked down the hallway, he heard a familiar quacking.  It looked like Uncle Donald was sleeping in the “guest room” in the Manor tonight rather than the houseboat out in the pool.  Louie pushed the door open.

“Good night, Uncle Donald!” he said, wrapping his arms around his uncle.

Uncle Donald looked surprised.  “Good night, Louie,” he said, returning the hug.

Louie happily returned to his own room.  Yep, there was no way he was ever going to sneak out again.


	17. Jubilant

Donald looked sadly at the pile of bills on the table.  It had been a hard couple of months--he hadn’t had any job that had lasted more than a week, the houseboat had sprung a leak, Huey had come down with yet another case of strep throat--and Donald had just finished telling the boys that Christmas was going to be very small this year.  It wasn’t the first time he’d had to tell them this, so they were kind of used to it and took it pretty well, but somehow, that made it even worse.  

* * *

Huey, Dewey, and Louie listlessly sat on the floor of their room, trying to hold in their sniffles and tears.  They had no real right to be upset.  They saw every day how hard Uncle Donald worked to try to keep their little family afloat.  They saw the weight of the burden he carried, all of those bills and jobs and three extra mouths to feed.  They were grateful for all that he had sacrificed for him--they’d be lying if they said they’d never thought about what Uncle Donald’s life would have been like if he didn’t have them to take care of.  But it was hard to watch everybody around them get excited for Christmas when they...couldn’t.

“What if we make our own Christmas this year?” Huey said.

“What’s even the point?” said Louie.  “There won’t be any presents, or a tree, and since we don’t even have a chimney, Santa probably won’t even find us this year--”

“Santa never finds us on the years we need him most,” Dewey grumbled.

“--and it probably won’t even bother to snow,” Louie said.

“That’s exactly why we should make our own Christmas!  We’ll get the presents and the tree!” Huey said.  “How much money do we have?”

The boys got their piggy banks and dumped them on the floor.

“That should be enough for something,” Huey said.

“Louie’s holding out on us!” Dewey said.  “He’s got more money hidden at the bottom of his pencil cup!”

“That’s for emergencies only!” Louie said.

“This is an emergency!  It’s Christmas!” Dewey said.

“Christmas is _not_ an emergency!” Louie said.

“We don’t need Louie’s emergency money,” Huey said.  “We’ll make do with this.  Now, we have to decide which is more important--a tree or presents?”

“Without a tree, we won’t have anywhere to put the presents,” Dewey said.

“Without presents, it’ll be a really sad tree,” Louie said.  “I vote presents.  They last longer, anyway.”

“Dewey?” said Huey.

Dewey thought for a moment.  “Yeah, ok.  But who are we going to get presents for?  Ourselves?”

“Uncle Donald!” Huey said.  “He deserves Christmas presents more than anybody!”

* * *

“So what do we get him?” Dewey asked as they walked the aisles of DuckMart.

“We should get him something he needs,” Huey said.  “What’s he broken recently?”

“No, we should get him something fun!” Louie said.  “It’s Christmas!  Christmas is all about fun!”

“I think Uncle Donald will appreciate it better if it’s something he needs,” Huey said.  “Like a new blender!  Didn’t he set the blender on fire a few weeks ago?”

“I don’t know that we need a blender…” Dewey mused.

“How will we know which blenders won’t be faulty like the last one?” Louie asked.

Huey took a look at the display of blenders, and his heart sank when he saw the prices.  Even if they got Uncle Donald the cheapest one, they’d never have enough for a Christmas tree.  And Louie did have a point.

“Ok, what else has he broken?” Huey said.

“He broke another plate on Tuesday,” Dewey said.

“We’re not getting Uncle Donald a plate for Christmas,” Louie said.  “Plates aren’t fun _or_ needed.”

“You definitely need plates, Louie.  What else are you going to eat off of?” Dewey said.

“Straight from the pan,” Louie said.

“We probably shouldn’t get any more breakable plates anyway, and I don’t think a plastic plate is a good Christmas present,” Huey said.  “What else is there?”

“We could always get him socks,” Dewey said.

“We don’t wear socks,” Louie said.

“Oh, yeah.”

“Wait a minute!” Huey said.  “I think Uncle Donald broke the last coffee mug!”

“When was that?” Louie asked.

“I don’t know, but when was the last time you saw him drink his coffee out of a mug?” Huey said.

“I thought he’d just switched to iced coffee,” Dewey said.

“Yeah, but I haven’t seen the mug in the cabinet, either,” Huey said.

“You do have a good point,” Louie said.  “But a _mug_ for Christmas?”

“People get each other mugs for Christmas all the time,” Huey said.  “Let’s at least see what they’ve got, ok?”

Louie shrugged and the trio went to find the mugs.

“Flowers...flowers...owls...apple mug?...Santa mug…” Dewey said, looking through them.

“This one says ‘coffee’ all over it in various fonts,” Louie said.

“There’s gotta be a good one for Uncle Donald,” Huey said.  “Hey, check this out.  ‘World’s Best Mom,’ ‘World’s Best Dad,’ ‘World’s Best Grandma...’

“Do you really think they’re gonna have ‘World’s Best Uncle?” Louie said.  “Uncles aren’t usually that special.”

“Ours is,” Huey said.  “And there’s no reason he shouldn’t get his own mug.”

“Here’s a color-it-yourself mug,” Dewey said.  “We could do it ourselves?”

“I’ve got one!” Huey said, crawling back out of the shelf.  “Check it out!  ‘World’s Greatest Uncle!’”

“Awesome!” Dewey said.

“I don’t know, guys,” Louie said.  “A mug still feels...not all that special.  Especially one that only has ‘World’s Greatest Uncle’ written in black letters and nothing else.”

“We could also get the color-it-yourself markers and spruce it up a little,” Dewey suggested.

“Do the markers come separately?” Huey asked.

“Oh.  No, they don’t.”

“Then why don’t we just get the color-it-yourself mug and do it ourselves?” Louie said.  

“Because the mug companies have to know that there’s a market for ‘World’s Greatest Uncle’ stuff!” Huey said.

“We could color the color-it-yourself mug for our teacher,” Dewey said.

“We do have a pretty good teacher this year,” Louie said.

Huey looked at the prices for both mugs.  Buying both seemed like a lot, especially when they didn’t have a Christmas tree yet.  Still, by buying both mugs, they’d be killing two birds with one stone, and one of those birds was one they didn’t even plan to kill.

“Ok,” said Huey.  “It’s settled, then.  We’ll get both.”

* * *

“Can you show us your cheapest Christmas tree, please?” Huey asked the chicken at the Christmas tree farm.

“Sure!  Right this way,” he said, leading the way.  “These are our low-end trees,” he said, pointing to a patch of small, sparse, and crooked trees.  “A lot of them we cut prematurely because they weren’t healthy enough to grow into big trees like you see over that way.”  He pointed to the big, lush trees on the other side of the farm.  “Let me know if you find one you like.”

The triplets started looking at the trees.  The first thing that Huey checked on each one was the price, but each price tag made him more and more despondent.  There _had_ to be one that fit their budget.

“The needles on these things come off if you so much as look at them!” Louie said, shaking one a little.  Sure enough, a blizzard of needles fell to the ground.

“This one doesn’t--oh,” said Dewey as he accidentally broke off the branch he was holding onto.

“It doesn’t matter, anyway,” Huey said, sitting down.  “They’re all too expensive.”

“Oh,” said Louie, suddenly looking a bit apprehensive.  He tapped his hand against his pocket, which was a bit more snug than usual.

“Hey, this one isn’t so bad!” Dewey said from a few trees away.  “The needles and branches aren’t coming off so much.  It’s just kinda small and crooked.”

Huey got up and walked over to his brother to check the price tag.  “This is still too much money,” he said.  “I guess we won’t have a Christmas tree this year.”

Louie put his hand on his pocket again.  “I suppose we could--”

“Have you found one you like?” the chicken said, coming back over to them.

“Yeah, but--”

“I guess not,” Huey said, interrupting Dewey.  “Thanks anyway.”

The chicken check the price tag on the small, crooked Christmas tree.  “Oh!  That’s a misprint!” he said, taking out a red marker.  He crossed out the price and wrote in a new number.  “There!  Much better.  Sorry about that, kids.”  

The three boys crowded around the tag.  “We’ll take it!” Huey said.

“Excellent!” said the chicken, and half an hour later, the boys were carrying the tiny, crooked Christmas tree home.

* * *

On Christmas morning, Huey, Dewey, and Louie crept out of bed and carefully took the tiny Christmas tree from its hiding place in the corner of their room out into the middle of the houseboat.  They grabbed the box of ornaments and started hanging them on the tree as quietly as they could.

* * *

Meanwhile, Donald was laying in bed, staring at the ceiling.  Today just felt _wrong_.  His boys should be waking up to find presents piled high around a sparkling Christmas tree and then later sitting down to a big Christmas dinner.  Instead, the only things that would differentiate today from the rest of the year would be the “Merry Christmas’s” and maybe a holiday special or two on TV.

Wait a second.  Donald listened.  He could have sworn he heard something out--

“Shhh!”

“Dewey, knock it off!”

Donald got out of bed and went out to the houseboat’s common area.

“What’s going--”

_“Merry Christmas, Uncle Donald!”_

Donald looked at the tiny, sparkling Christmas tree, framed by his nephews’ jubilant faces.

“You did this?  All by yourselves?”

“Yeah!  And look!  We even got you a Christmas present!”  Sure enough, there was an irregularly-shaped present wrapped in--was that notebook paper?--sitting underneath the tree.

Tears welled in Donald’s eyes, and he wasn't sure if he was touched at his boys’ thoughtfulness or heartbroken at his own inability to make Christmas when his boys managed to do all of this.

“I-I don’t--”

“Open your present!” Huey said, pushing it into his hands.

Donald carefully unwrapped the paper to find a mug that said “World’s Greatest Uncle” on one side and had all three of his nephews names (handwritten, he could tell) on the other, complete with a doodle of what Donald was pretty sure was the four of them in a group hug (he’d gotten pretty good at deciphering his nephews’ pictures over the years).

Donald tried to speak, but the words stuck in his throat.  His nephews looked at him expectantly.

“Merry Christmas, boys!” he finally said, opening his arms.  Huey, Dewey, and Louie ran to him and hugged him tightly.

It looked like this year’s Christmas was a good one after all.


	18. Waiting

Huey stared out the window of the houseboat.  He saw the dock, he saw the road at the edge of the dock, he saw Uncle Donald’s little red car parked on the road at the edge of the dock, and if he looked up, he could see a few seagulls flying around.  But he didn’t see what he was looking for.

Huey had spent all of his free time over the last few weeks in this very spot, watching the world outside.  His brothers had given up on getting him to do anything else.  Every time a car slowed down outside their pier, he his hopes grew just a little, only to be smashed back down when that car kept driving past.

“Huey, you’ve gotta come away from that window,” Uncle Donald said, walking by with the laundry.  “What are you waiting for, anyway?”

Tears welled up in Huey’s eyes.  Up until now, he’d always answered this question with a simple “nothing,” but today…

“Mom,” he whispered.

Uncle Donald put down the laundry basket.  “What?”

“I’m waiting for Mom to come back,” he said.

“Oh, Huey,” Uncle Donald said, putting a hand on his nephew’s shoulder.

“You said she was gone,” Huey said.  “Gone, not dead.  If someone’s gone, they come back.   _ You _ always come back.”

Uncle Donald’s eyes were watery.  “Huey, your mom--your mom loved you very much.  If she’s still out there, somewhere, I’m certain she’s trying everything she can to come back to us.  But there’s a very good chance that-that she isn’t still out there.”

“But you said--”

“I know what I said,” Uncle Donald said gently.  “I don’t want to believe that she’s,” Uncle Donald’s words caught in his throat, “gone forever.  But you can’t spend your whole life waiting for someone who--who probably won’t come back.  She wouldn’t want that.”

Huey’s face suddenly felt very wet.

“And if she  _ does _ come back someday,” Uncle Donald continued, “she’ll want to hear about all of the things you’ve been doing while she was gone.  She’ll want to hear about how you played with your brothers, became a Junior Woodchuck, and made the football team.  And in the meantime, I’m here.  Your brothers are here.  We’re still a family, even if we’re missing a few people.”

Huey threw himself into Uncle Donald’s arms, heart aching for a mother he’d never really known.  Uncle Donald held him tightly as he cried, that horrible crying where your lungs didn’t know what to do so your breath came in huge, heaving gasps in between huge, heaving sobs.

“I’ll always be here,” Uncle Donald promised.  “Always.”


	19. Nature

Donald Duck had always had a temper.  It was one of his core personality traits; part of his nature.  Grandma Duck had always said that he’d hatched “red-faced and spitting fire,” and though Donald couldn’t be sure how much of that was literal and how much was metaphor, his most vivid memories from when he was a duckling fit that description almost exactly.  He remembered getting angry over a lot of things--being hungry, being tired, needing a diaper change, not being understood (which, unfortunately for him, was very often the case--thankfully, Della was usually there to interpret), not getting his way, people looking at him funny--come to think about it, Donald spent more of his childhood angry than not.

His mom had tried taking him to some sort of therapy to get his temper under control, but that ended fairly quickly due to her own temper.  Still, they’d both learned some coping mechanisms to keep a temper under control, and they even tried to use them sometimes, but it’s hard to learn to keep your temper under control when the person trying to help you is often just as angry as you are.  Grandma Duck had helped a little more, once Donald and Della went to live with her, but her method of dealing with his temper was usually to send him outside to do some chores to blow off steam.  That was great when you lived on a farm, but it didn’t translate very well to non-farm life, although Donald did sometimes find himself cleaning up the houseboat when he got angry.  Somehow, it didn’t give him quite the same satisfaction as scaring the feathers off of all the chickens as he gathered their eggs.

Of course, there had been times when Donald’s temper had come in handy.  Like when that creep from school wouldn’t stop asking Della out, or when a group of kids started throwing stuff at Cousin Fethry on his way home from school because he was “weird.”  But mostly, it had just gotten him into trouble.

For most of his life, Donald had had Della to help calm him down.  She was the only one who could do so reliably, and she usually didn’t get mad or upset back at him when he snapped at her (which made it all the more worse when she did).  So when Donald got the news that Della was gone and his three nephews were thrust into his arms to take care of for at _least_ the next eighteen years?  

He was _terrified_.

Having to take care of three tiny ducklings when he could barely take care of himself was scary enough.  But add in his temper?  What if they were ever on the receiving end of it?

The first thing Donald did when it looked like Della wasn’t coming back and he’d be the one to take care of the boys was frantically start reading parenting books.  They _all_ had a page or two devoted to how important it was to _never shake a baby_ **_ever_ ** .  And Donald certainly never planned to shake his nephews, but what if he lost his temper and lost _control_ and shook them anyway?  Fighting _was_ usually his first response to getting angry, after all.  Well, after yelling.  But his nephews could _die_ .  He could be a nephew murderer.  Donald could see the headlines clear as day--DUCKBURG RESIDENT MURDERS NEPHEWS IN FIT OF ANGER.  FORMER ADVENTURER MURDERS SONS OF LATE SISTER.  LOCAL DUCK LOSES TEMPER, THREE BOYS LOSE LIVES.  Why, oh, why did Della have to leave him with three fragile, tiny babies when he couldn’t even trust _himself_?

(Of course, if Donald had stopped to think for a moment, he never entirely lost control when he lost his temper, never shook anyone, never tried to fight a baby or anyone else significantly smaller than him…)

These thoughts had constantly flitted through Donald’s head when he was first thrust into sudden parenthood, vying for space amongst such thoughts as “how do I take care of _three_ babies _100%_ of the time???” and “I’ve been trying to burp Louie for about three hours now why won’t he burp I am the _worst_ father-uncle in the WORLD” and “what if I accidentally throw the babies overboard or drop them on their heads who thought it was ok to trust me with BABIES” and incomprehensible screaming.  

Now, though, most of these thoughts had faded into the background.  Donald had learned how to take care of babies, and then toddlers, and then children, and soon he would learn how to take care of teenagers.  No one had been thrown overboard or dropped on their heads, and no one had been shaken.  Sure, he’d gotten mad at the kids here and there, but never enough to come close to harming them, or even bring out his fighting fists.  But the worry never quite left him…

What if he lost his temper on his nephews?

It was in his nature, after all.


	20. Sheltered

“All right, we should be safe in here,” Scrooge said, his words echoing on the stone walls.

“But what about Uncle Donald?” Dewey said.

“We’ll just have to hope for the best,” Scrooge said.

“How--what do you think his chances are?” Louie asked, tears staining the feathers on his face.

Scrooge was quiet for a moment.  “I don’t know.”

“As long as he can keep warm, he should be ok,” Huey said.  “Like if he finds another cave, or burrows himself in the snow.”

“Maybe--maybe his temper will keep him warm,” Dewey said.  “You know how his face always gets all red, maybe that can help.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Huey said.

“I don’t know, lad,” Scrooge said thoughtfully.  “Expending energy creates heat, and your Uncle Donald certainly expends a lot of it when he gets angry.”

“But Uncle Donald has to lose his temper for it to work,” Louie said.  “What’s he going to get angry at, the snow?”

“Yes,” Dewey said.

“He’s gotten angry at less,” Huey said.

“Either way, the important thing is that we’re safe in here,” Scrooge said.  “This cave will provide adequate shelter until the storm blows over and we can get back to town.”

“Until the storm blows over and we can find Uncle Donald, you mean,” Louie said.

“Possibly.  More likely, we’ll have to put together a search party,” Scrooge said.  “We don’t quite have the supplies or the manpower for that.”

“So we’re not going to continue looking for the lost city?” Huey asked.

“Of course not!  I’m not stupid.  It’s much too dangerous to continue on.  We’ll have to wait until spring,” Scrooge said.

“Why didn’t we wait until spring to begin with?” Louie said, a tiny sniffle escaping from his bill.  

“Hubris,” Scrooge said.  “I also didn’t realize that winter was going to come so early here this year.  I came here about a month hence the last time I tried to find it, and the leaves were still busy changing color.”

“Global warming,” Huey said, beginning to shiver.

“Probably,” said Scrooge.  “Come closer, kids.  We’ve got to share body heat to keep from getting hypothermia.”

“Are we going to have to take off all our clothes and get into a sleeping bag together?” Dewey said.  “Because we saw a movie about that in health class last year, and it was weird.”

“What?  No.  That’s only if someone gets hypothermia,” Scrooge said.  “We’re looking to prevent that.”

“Hey, be quiet a second,” Louie said.  “I think I hear something.”

“That’s just the wind whistling against the opening of the cave,” Huey said.

“Sh!” Louie said.  

The quartet was quiet for a minute.

“Wait, I think I hear it, too,” Dewey said, standing up and moving toward the opening of the cave.

“Get back here!” Scrooge said.  “There’s nothing to be gained by--”

“Wait, is that--” Huey began.

“It sounds like Uncle Donald!” Louie said, running to the mouth of the cave and peering out into the blizzard.

“You can’t--”

“Uncle Donald!” Louie yelled out into the snow as his brothers joined him at the mouth of the cave to yell his name.

“Boys!  Get back inside!  Donald will kill me if you get the slightest bit of frostbite!”

The boys ignored him and kept yelling for their uncle.

“Wait a second,” Scrooge said, tilting his head to one side so he could listen better.  “I think I hear him, too.”

Donald’s distinctive angry quacking slowly became louder underneath the howling of the wind as a dark shape became visible in the swirling snow.  Scrooge joined in with his great-nephews.

The four ducks moved out of the way as Donald stomped into the cave, hands clenched into fists at his sides, water dripping off and onto the floor.

“There you are,” he said, anger coloring his words.  “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.  If it hadn’t been for that miserable snow--” and here Donald’s words dissolved into indecipherable quacks as he turned to wave his fist at the weather.

“Come back here, lad,” Scrooge said, taking Donald by the arm and leading him farther inside the cave, their three nephews following closely behind.  “We’ll have you warmed up in a minute.”

“What?  I’m fine,” Donald said, his anger finally beginning to dissipate.  Sure enough, heat was rolling off of Donald in waves.  The boys huddled closely around him, grateful for both the warmth and their Uncle Donald.

“Are you boys ok?” Donald asked.

“Yes, Uncle Donald,” the boys chorused.

“Good,” he said.  “It’s a good thing you found shelter.”

“And it’s an even better thing that you did, too,” said Louie.

Donald chuckled.  “Well, I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily _better_ ,” he said, putting his arms around his nephews.  “But I’m certainly glad I did."


	21. Fingertips

When he was little, Louie had been fascinated by magic.  Not that magic wand stuff that you saw in cartoons and kids’ movies, but _real_ magic, sleight-of-hand tricks that made coins appear out of nowhere and playing cards travel through a still deck.  Even the mediocre magician at Owlivia Hoot’s birthday party had captured his interest.  No matter how hard he tried, he could never quite figure out _how_ the magicians did their tricks.  

Unfortunately, Uncle Donald didn’t know any magic tricks.

“Besides,” Uncle Donald had said, “a magician never reveals his secrets.”

Louie’s face fell.

“However,” Uncle Donald had continued, “we can go to the library and see if they have any books about it.”

So they did, and Louie came home with a stack of books promising to teach him those secrets.

Louie practiced and practiced, perfecting each trick in the mirror before debuting them to his brothers and uncle.  He performed each trick for his classmates and teachers, earning himself a reputation as a magician and a showman.  He even made friends with the school janitor in order to widen his audience.  And if anyone asked, he told them he wanted to be a magician when he grew up.

But then Louie got older, and money became tighter, and Uncle Donald had an even harder time holding down each job he took, and Louie’s deck of cards fell to the wayside as he tried all he could to help out.

It turned out that the training Louie’s fingers had received to do all of those magic tricks lent themselves well to certain other skills.  He practiced them in the mirror before debuting them to his brothers and Uncle Donald, though this time, they often didn’t know it.  Instead of showing these new skills to the kids at school, he used them on crowded streets, carefully plucking a wallet or a watch out of an unsuspecting business man’s pocket or a well-dressed lady’s purse.  He never kept them, of course--what would Louie do with all those credit cards and driver's licenses?  Not to mention the wallets themselves--there was no way he could hide all of that from his family.  No, instead of keeping them, he’d run after his victim, claiming that he’d just seen them drop their wallet on the pavement and wanted to return it.  If he was lucky, the unsuspecting person would give him a few dollars in gratitude.  No one seemed to notice when the fridge was a little more well-stocked than it had been that morning or that Louie seemed to have a knack for finding dollars hidden between the couch cushions and on his route home from school.

The other skill Louie’s magic tricks had given him was one he only used when things got _really_ bad.  When someone got sick and they’d run out of cough medicine, or the fridge was as empty as Uncle Donald’s bank account and he wasn’t getting paid until Friday, he’d sneak off and swipe a bottle of medicine or a box of granola bars.  It helped when his brothers were around--they were good at providing a distraction, and three kids wandering around the store were a little less suspicious than just one.  And those granola bars or that cough medicine went a long way in keeping them in one piece until Uncle Donald got paid again.

Still, Louie _hated_ having to steal.  It was wrong.  Uncle Donald would be so upset if he ever found out.  And every time he took something, Louie imagined the employees of the store--minimum wage workers who were just trying to eke out a living, same as them--getting in trouble for it.  

Louie couldn’t wait for the day when he no longer had to rely on his fingertips to keep his family going.


	22. Lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The wonderful Schnickledooger was inspired to continue day seven's "Confusion" to fill in some of the gaps about what happened before and after the cave-in, so go check it out!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12461136)

Ok.  All right.  It was fine.  Everything was ok.  Definitely ok.  Perfectly fine.  It would all work out ok, and tonight he’d be in his bed, safe and sound, laughing at himself over how worried he’d been over nothing.

Right?

Dewey hadn’t seen any sign of his uncles or brothers or Webby in forty-five minutes, according to his phone.  That was definitely a problem, considering they were in a dense forest that had been known to swallow up explorers on their way to finding lost civilizations and undiscovered species of animals and insects (according to Huey, at least).  They’d been trying to find the Lost Crown of Genghis Khan.  Why they were looking in South America, Dewey had no idea.  He was pretty sure Scrooge had explained it, but once it started to feel like history class, Dewey had zoned out.  Force of habit.

Ok, that tree definitely looked familiar.  So that meant Dewey was probably going around in circles, which was probably bad...then again, Uncle Donald always said to stay put if he ever got lost, so maybe it was good?  Dewey wasn’t sure.  Of course, Dewey wasn’t sure if he was still in the same place he’d gotten lost, so that piece of advice may or maybe not be worth anything right now.  Either way, Dewey felt like he had to keep moving.  Standing around in the jungle by himself seemed dangerous, somehow.

Dewey slapped away a mosquito.  There were few things he disliked about adventuring, but mosquitos were one of them.  They were all taking malaria pills, so they weren’t in danger of getting sick, but those bites itched like crazy.  Dewey had trouble focusing in the best of times, but when his body was covered in mosquito bites, all bets were off.  The only moments of relief he found were those he was able to find pictures in the bites dotting his skin, almost like constellations, even though, no matter how many times Huey tried to teach him about them, Dewey could not see a single picture in those dots of light.  How the heck was a lopsided trapezoid with a line coming off of it supposed to be a _bear_?

Speaking of constellations, Dewey was pretty sure it was a little bit darker out than it had been a few minutes ago.  Not _dark_ , per se, but almost like a very light shadow was blanketing the forest.  Shoot.  This was bad.  This was really bad.  Being lost in an explorer-eating-jungle was bad enough in the daylight, but at _night_?  He was doomed.

Ok.  Focus.  Dewey was a Junior Woodchuck, even though he missed half the meetings and only had half a dozen merit badges.  He had to have learned _something_ about what to do when lost in the woods.

Dewey stopped walking to think.  A signal!  He had to send some sort of a signal so Uncle Donald and the others could find him!  Now, how could he make a signal…

Fire was an option.  Depending on how the fire burned, either the fire itself of the smoke it created would work as a signal.  But then again, starting a fire could burn the whole jungle down, and, knowing Dewey, chances were greater than not that it would.  Besides, Uncle Donald didn’t like them playing with fire, and since Dewey had once had a very memorable experience with a candle and a match that reinforced that rule, he decided to put “signal fire” at the very end of the list.

Sound could also work as a signal.  If Dewey could yell loud enough, someone might hear him and come to get him.  But what should he yell?  “Help?”  “Hi, it’s Dewey, I’m lost, so please come find me?”  “Where are you guys?”  “S.O.S.?”  

Speaking of S.O.S., Dewey could use the flashlight in his pocket to make a signal.  All three triplets know the morse code to spell out “S.O.S.” (you didn’t get away with living with a sailor for ten years without learning it), so that would work perfectly...except for the fact that it was too bright out for light from the flashlight to actually be seen.  Dewey moved this to plan “if-it-gets-dark-out-before-I’m-found.”

That left sound, aka yelling at the top of his lungs.  Here goes.

“HEEEEELLLLLLLP!”

The volume of his sudden outburst cause a flock of startled birds to fly away, but he didn’t hear anyone answer back.

“HEY!  SOMEONE HELP!  I’M LOST!”

Still nothing.

“HUEY!  LOUIE!  UNCLE DONALD!  WEBBY!  ANYBODY?”

Nope.

“HEEEELLLLP!”

Nada.

“‘S.O.S.!”

Dewey heard a rustling in the bushes.  Relief tentatively began leaking into his chest, only to be crushed when a small jungle creature emerged from the foliage to waddle across the path in front of him.

“Arrrrrrargh!” Dewey growled in frustration, pounding his fists on the nearest tree.  It wouldn’t help him find his family any quicker, but it did make him feel a tiny bit better.

“Every time we go on one of your crazy adventures, something happens to one of the kids!”

Dewey stopped and listened hard to the faint but familiar voice.

“This time you were right here.  You’ve got more of a responsibility to watch over them, being their guardian.”

“ _You’re_ the one who thinks it’s ok to take four ten-year-olds on crazy adventures in all corners of the world!”

Dewey really hoped he wasn’t imagining this.

“I didn’t see you complaining when you were their age!”

Wait, what?

“I was _ten_!  I didn’t _know_ any better to complain!”

Hold on a second, Uncle Donald’s voice was _definitely_ getting quieter no no no they were going the wrong way--

“Hey!  Over here!” Dewey yelled.  “Uncle Donald!  Scrooge!”

“Hold on, I think I hear something.”

“Yes!  You do!  This way!  Over here!  Follow the sound of my voice!  I want to get out of here!”

“Dewey?”  

Relief flooded through the duckling’s chest.  “Uncle Donald!  Where are you?”

“Stay put, lad!  We’ll come and find you!”

“Ok!” he said.  “Uh, I’m this way!  Follow my voice, I guess!  Helloooo!  Over here!”  Dewey paused, thinking up something else to say.  “Is this the real life...is this just fantasy...caught in a landslide...no escape from reality…”

“Oh, not that again,” he heard his Uncle Donald mutter, and he couldn’t help but let out a giggle.  Dewey had spent just about all of the third grade singing that song around the houseboat.  It was now effectively banned from the Duck family.

“Open your eyes...look up to the skies and seeeeeeeeeee!  I’m just a poor boy, I need no sympathy, because I'm easy come, easy go, little high, little low, any way the wind blows doesn't really matter to me…!”

“Dewey!” Uncle Donald said, popping out of the foliage with Scrooge in tow.  “You can stop singing now.”

“Awww…”

“Are you ok?”  Uncle Donald kneeled in front of Dewey, soft feathered hands and anxious eyes searching his nephew for any sign of injury.

“I’m fine,” Dewey said.  “Where are Huey, Louie, and Webby?”

“Back at the plane,” Scrooge said.  “I took them back as soon as we discovered you were gone.  Didnae want any of them wandering off, too.”

Dewey hung his head.  “Sorry,” he said.

“Well, it doesn’t matter now,” Scrooge said.  “Looks like it’s back to the plane.”

“Doesn’t matter?” Uncle Donald said.  “Of course it matters!  You heard Huey’s list of explorers who came into this jungle and never came out!  Dewey could have gotten hurt _or worse!_ ”  His eyes narrowed.  “Don’t think this is the end of it.”

Scrooge gave an irritated sigh.  “Fine.  We can discuss this, _after we get back on the plane._ ”

Donald gave an approving nod and then turned to Dewey.  “Don’t think you’re off the hook, either.”

“Yes, Uncle Donald,” Dewey said, looking at the ground.  

“Which way to the plane?” Uncle Donald asked.  Scrooge nodded in the direction began to walk.  Uncle Donald took Dewey by the hand and followed.  Maybe Dewey would get to go to sleep in his bed tonight, safe and sound, laughing at himself over how worried he’d been over nothing.  After all, as long as he had two uncles to look after him, he’d never be lost for long.


	23. Wishes

Ever since first grade, Huey had kept a wishing jar.  It was a clear jar labeled “Wishes” that he kept on his desk next to a small stack of strips of colored paper.  Whenever he had a wish, he wrote it down on a strip, fold it into a little star, and put it in the jar.  Those wishes could be anything from the sensible, like doing well on a test or that Uncle Donald got another job (God, there were so many of those), or the fantastic, like a trip to Mars or candy bars raining from the sky (although sometimes he’d rather it rain something more practical, like dinner).  Huey wasn’t even sure what that was supposed to accomplish, but somehow, it made him feel better.

He never said anything when an unusually messily folded star made its way to the top of the jar.  Dewey and Louie needed their wishes, too, and Huey was more than willing to share his jar with them.  Besides, he knew that their wishes must be strong if they went to the trouble of adding them to his jar.

Huey hadn’t thought about his wishing jar in a while, ever since they’d moved in with Uncle Scrooge, but now, Huey went into the houseboat to retrieve it.  Somehow, his wishes had survived the fire that had sent them to live with Uncle Scrooge in the first place (thanks, Dewey), although the blank strips of paper were gone.  Huey returned to the house and cut a strip off a piece of printer paper.

 _‘I wish Uncle Donald were ok,’_ he wrote.  His fingers fumbled clumsily as they tried to fold the strip into a star.  Tears prickled behind his eyes.  This time, writing his wish down had made things feel more real.  It had made everything worse.

Huey took a deep breath to compose himself as he dropped the star into the jar.  The bright white of the printer paper stood out against the soft pastels of the other wishes.  He stared at it a while, his beak set into a hard line as he tried so hard not to think about what he’d wished for.

“Uncle Donald’s awake!” he heard Dewey yell from the top of the stairs, breaking him out of his one-sided staring contest.

Huey took a few deep breaths and swallowed twice before he spoke, trying to make his words sound flippant and casual.  “Like for-real awake or messed-up awake?”  Most of the time, when Uncle Donald was awake, he didn’t make any sense.  He kept talking to people who weren’t there, he thought that Huey was some guy named Panchito and then another guy named Mickey, then he thought they were all pirates and that he was under attack.  The worst was when he thought Webby was his sister.  Huey wasn’t even sure what had happened after that--the next thing he knew, he was in the middle of the gardens fighting off a panic attack.  Uncle Scrooge said that Uncle Donald was in “another time, another place,” but Huey wanted him to be _here_ and _now_.  

“For-real awake!” Dewey called down.  

Huey bit his bottom beak.  “Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yeah, and he wants to know where you are.”

Huey stood up and slowly made his way upstairs.  He loved his Uncle Donald, and he wanted to see him, but Huey wasn’t sure he could take being mistaken for someone else again.

As Huey neared Uncle Donald’s room, he could hear soft murmuring and a few sniffles coming from inside.  Huey took a deep breath and pushed open the door.

Uncle Donald looked absolutely ragged, more exhausted than Huey had ever seen him.  Usually, Uncle Donald’s exhaustion was weighed down by stress, but now he just looked...tired.  His brothers were on the bed, too, Louie tucked under his arm and Dewey with his head on his other shoulder.

“Huey,” Uncle Donald said, his voice soft and raspy.  Well, raspier than usual--that is, if you could call whatever his voice normally was “raspy.”  The corners of his bill were turned up in the barest of smiles.  He patted the bed in front of Dewey.  

Huey cautiously joined his family on the bed.  Uncle Donald gave a contented sigh.  Was Dewey sure Uncle Donald was for-real awake and not messed-up awake?  Huey hadn’t seen his uncle so happy and stress-free in a _long_ time.

“I’m sorry I gave you boys such a scare,” Uncle Donald said.

“S’okay,” Huey said.

“We’re just glad you’re ok,” Dewey said.

“Yeah,” Louie said, snuggling even closer to their uncle, if that was even possible.  You knew things were bad when Louie started being affectionate.

Uncle Donald’s eyes drooped and he stifled a yawn.  “Well, everything’s all right now,” he said, closing his eyes,  Suddenly, that sounded like a very good idea.  He saw Louie’s eyes slip shut, and by the way Dewey shifted, Huey knew his were doing the same.  Huey closed his own eyes, realizing that, for the first time in days, his anxiety had faded and he, too, was content.

Maybe Huey’s wish had worked after all.


	24. Breakable

Huey, Dewey, and Louie were exactly the same age, except for the few seconds between their hatchings.  But those seconds didn’t _count_.  They always told each other they didn’t count, except for whenever Dewey did the “when I was your age,” joke to Louie, or when he did the “I can’t wait till I’m as old as you,” joke to Huey.  But those were just jokes, so they didn’t count, either.  Even so, whenever they told people their hatch order, they went, “that makes sense,” and spent the next hour nodding thoughtfully at what they said and did.  But as far as they were concerned, and as far as Uncle Donald was concerned, Huey, Dewey, and Louie were exactly the same age.  

So why did Louie look so much smaller and younger and _breakable_ now?

The answer was that there’d been another stupid cave-in in another stupid cave, and as much as caves made the _perfect_ places to have treasure-finding adventures, Dewey had already decided that he was never setting foot in another one again.

But that wasn’t the _real_ answer.  It wasn’t the _right_ answer.  Yes, that’s what had happened--there had been another cave-in which had caused a rockslide that had carried Louie down to a lower part of the cave--but it still didn’t explain why Louie looked as fragile as a bubble.  One false move and POP!  One small touch and POP!  Heck, just wait long enough, and POP!  There'd goes Louie.

It probably didn’t help that he was lying in a huge, king-sized bed in one of the many unused rooms of McDuck Manor.  On the airplane ride back to Duckburg, Dewey had overheard Uncle Scrooge quietly call Mrs. Beakley, telling her to clear out the dust and freshen up one of the rooms.  And once they’d landed, they’d gone over to the hospital, where Louie had been poked and prodded and scanned until the doctors declared he had a concussion and a broken arm.  And then they’d taken Louie home and Scrooge arranged for regular house calls, claiming that this way he’d save money on the hospital bills, but Dewey was pretty sure he preferred having his family close by when one of them was sick or injured.  Which didn’t make a whole lot of sense, since he’d just gone the last ten years having _no_ contact with his family, but also that might be why he wanted to keep them so close.  Either way, there was _no_ way keeping Louie at home was cheaper than keeping him at the hospital.  Not that Dewey was complaining.

And now Dewey was standing in the door of Louie’s room, hardly daring to _breathe_ just in case he burst that bubble, watching Uncle Donald softly stroke his brother’s hair as he watched him sleep.  There was no way that Uncle Donald wasn’t freaking out right now, but he just had a contented smile on his face, stroking Louie’s feathers as if he were just taking a nap rather than potentially slipping into a coma.  He knew by the way that Uncle Donald’s eyes had flickered when he came in that he knew Dewey was there, but they hadn’t said anything to each other.  Dewey wasn’t sure whether his uncle had completely lost it or was keeping his freaking-out inside (which was a very un-Uncle-Donald-like thing to do).

“Dewey?” Uncle Donald said gently, and suddenly Dewey realized that he was doing that weird breathing thing where you were trying so hard not to cry that you forgot how to stop doing that and let it all out.  He tore his overly-bright eyes away from his brother and turned them to his uncle.

Uncle Donald patted his lap.  “Come here,” he said, and Dewey rushed over as the floodgates opened and he began to sob, huge, ugly sobs that he couldn’t stop and would probably wake up Louie and--

“Shhhhhh,” Uncle Donald said, wrapping his free arm around him using that hand to pet Dewey’s feathers the same as Louie.

“Is Louie gonna be ok?” Dewey asked between huge, shuddering breaths.

Uncle Donald was quiet for a moment, turning his attention back to his other nephew.  “Yeah,” he finally said.  “Louie’s gonna be ok.”

Dewey looked at his brother, too.  If Uncle Donald said Louie was gonna be ok...why did he still look so _breakable_?


	25. Friend

Big, fat tears rolled down Webby’s cheeks as she hid huddled in the hedges of the Manor garden.  She’d _really_ messed up this time.

It was just that everything was happening so much right now.  The boys were so close to finding out what had had happened to their mom, so things were super overwhelming on that front.  And then their emotions had been so all over the place lately.  Huey was burying himself in Junior Woodchucks stuff, so he was rarely home, and when he was home, he was _still_ buried in Junior Woodchucks stuff.  Dewey was altering between diving into research on his mother and “YOLOing it up,” as he put it.  And Louie kept disappearing all day to nobody knew where and Webby was pretty sure he had a new phone but was even more sure that either of his uncles hadn’t gotten it for him.  Webby just wanted to spend some time with them, maybe play a game of foam-dart tag.  But every time she tried to hang out with them, they snapped at her.  The only time she managed to do anything with them was when Dewey let her help him research.

Granny said to give them some space and that learning all this stuff about their mother was bound to bring up all kinds of emotions.  But Webby had just found out about what had happened to her own parents, so she had all sorts of emotions herself, and she just wanted to _talk_ to someone about them, or at least do something fun so she could forget about them for a while, but the boys were so busy wrapped up in their own stuff that she wasn’t even sure they knew what she’d just learned.  

And so she’d completely ruined their friendship by snapping at them.

Webby closed her eyes, her words echoing in her head.  

_‘Your mother isn’t the only thing that matters.’_

_‘Maybe you should remember the other things in your life for once.’_

_‘If no one’s told you about your mother by now, maybe it’s better if you don’t know what happened to her.’_

And now...now she’d lost the only friends she’d ever had.

Webby’d known it wouldn’t last.  Either the nephews would think she was weird or a tag along, or Mr. McDuck would start fighting with Mr. Duck again and they’d move back out.  But she didn’t think she’d actively destroy the only friendships she’d ever had.

Why did everything have to happen so much?

Suddenly, she started hearing voices calling in the distance.

“Webby!”

“Are you sure she’s out here?”

“Of course I’m sure.  I heard her run out of the house.”

“That doesn’t mean she’s _here_ ; she might have left the yard completely.”

“No way.  She never left the Manor until we showed up.  She’s got to know all the best hiding places around here.”

Webby froze.  The nephews were _looking for her_.  They probably wanted to yell at her and formally dissolve their friendship; she hadn’t really given them the chance to do that before.  Webby already _knew_ there was no way they were friends anymore.  She really didn’t need them to tell her that.

Or maybe they’d get bored looking for her and give up and return to the house.  That kind of sounded like a better idea, because then she wouldn’t have to face them any time soon (and Webby was the king of making her way around the Manor without running into anybody, so she was sure she could avoid them for a while), but at the same time that would mean that they didn’t even _care_ about her enough to talk to her and make sure she was ok and hadn’t run all the way into town, and somehow that was even worse.

Or maybe they wanted to apologize.

Nah.

“Webby!”

“We know you’re out here!”

“I’m not convinced.”

“Sh!”

Webby held her breath as the voices grew louder and footsteps came closer to her hiding place.

“Webby, please come out!  We don’t have to talk if you’re not ready to, but we just want to make sure you’re ok!”

Tears sprung to Webby’s eyes.  Huey, Dewey, and Louie _did_ care about her after all.  Or maybe they just wanted to cover their own butts to make sure she didn’t turn up dead because they hated her too much to make sure she hadn’t been kidnapped or run into traffic.  Or maybe they just had the basic decency to not want her dead or hurt but to still want her completely out of their lives.

“Yeah, come on, Webby.  We’re kind of getting worried.”

If Webby stayed in her hiding place, she’d just be prolonging the inevitable.  Might as well get this over with.

Webby crawled out of her spot in the hedges and stood up, her hands shaking as she brushed some stray leaves and twigs off of her clothes.

“Webby!”

“Are you ok?”

“I _told_ you she was out here.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Webby said, her voice shaking, trying to find a good place to look that wasn’t any of the nephews.  “I guess I’ll just...head back inside.”

“Wait!” Dewey said, grabbing her by the wrist.  

Webby stopped, and he took his hand away, taking a step back to give her space.

“We don’t have to talk about this right now if you don’t want to, but we do want to say we’re sorry.”

Huey and even Louie nodded in agreement.

“We haven’t been--we haven’t been being very good friends lately, and we’re going to try to do better,” Huey said.

“As long as that’s ok with you,” Dewey added.

Webby looked at each nephew, trying to figure out whether or not they were being serious.

“Really?” she said.  “You still want to be my friends?”

“Sure,” said Louie with a shrug.  “But we still have to talk about what happened earlier, because that _definitely_ crossed a line.”

“And so was the way we treated you,” Dewey said.

Webby rubbed the back of her head.  “Yeah, I’m _really_ sorry about that,” she said.

“Hey, you should hear some of the stuff Louie’s said when he was angry,” Dewey said.

“It’s not like you’re any better!” Louie retorted, giving his brother a playful shove.

“We can talk about it tomorrow, after we’ve all had the chance to calm down and think about what happened,” Huey said.  “Now, let’s get back to the Manor before Uncle Donald discovers we’re gone.”

They began to walk back to the mansion in a comfortable silence.  Webby sniffled back a few tears-- _happy_ tears--that, if the boys noticed, they didn’t say anything about.

It looked like she hadn’t lost her friends after all.


	26. Realization

Donald scowled as he drove home from work.  “Work” this week (actually this month, come to think of it) was a low-paying job cleaning up everybody else’s messes at the Money Bin, given begrudgingly to him by Scrooge himself.  While Donald was glad to be leaving work, and he was glad to soon be seeing his nephews (and Webby), he just. didn’t want to see Scrooge.  He didn’t want to deal with him.  Didn’t want to have to hear another smug “How was cleaning my money today?  You’d better have made it sparkle, now.”  And he certainly didn’t want his employment by Scrooge thrown in his face, threatened to be snatched away at a moment’s notice.  

The only reason he took this job was because Scrooge had decided to make his employment a requirement for his continued living at the Manor.  Scrooge promised he wouldn’t kick out the boys-- _they_ certainly deserved a roof over their head, he said, as if Donald couldn’t provide that; it was just about the only thing he _could_ reliably provide, seeing as he owned the houseboat--but if Donald wanted to keep living there, he had to get a job.

Which did make sense.  Donald did prefer being employed, and it wasn’t like Scrooge was giving him an allowance for spending money.  But two weeks wasn’t enough time to find a new job, at least not when you were Donald Duck, so Scrooge had ever-so-graciously offered him one.  Cleaning the money in his bin.  And anything else around the bin that needed cleaning.

Donald hated cleaning.

Actually, that wasn’t entirely true.  Donald didn’t mind cleaning after himself and the boys (although they could stand to keep their rooms a bit neater).  But Donald really hated cleaning after other people.

Especially super rich people who were so rich that they kept their money in a huge vault and hired someone whose only job was to keep it clean and polished.

Donald pulled into the Manor’s huge driveway.  He wished there was a way to bypass the Manor entirely and just skip right to his houseboat.  It was the only space that was truly his.  Not that he’d had more space back before they moved into the Manor, but at least then he didn’t have to pass through someone else’s space to get to it.

Donald parked his car far away from Scrooge’s limos.  He got out of his car and stared at the mansion.  He _could_ walk around to the back so he didn’t have to go through the house, but then he’d have to go through a line of hedges, which was generally more trouble than it was worth.  Besides, then the boys wouldn’t know he was home.

Donald sighed and made his way up the walkway.  At least he’d convinced Beakley that he could open the door _himself_ , thank you very much.  

Donald found the kids doing their homework in the dining room.  Well, Huey and Louie were doing their homework, while Dewey and Webby were having an animated conversation about something was was most certainly _not_ homework.

“Hi, Uncle Donald!” the boys greeted him.  

“Homework?” Donald said to Dewey.

Dewey guiltily turned his attention back to his homework.  

“What about you?” Donald said, turning to Webby.

“Oh, I finished mine on the bus,” Webby said, digging around in her backpack.  “See?”

Donald paged through her homework.  “Is this all of it?”

“Well, I’m supposed to read for fifteen minutes, too, but I was planning on doing that before bed,” she said.

Donald nodded just as Scrooge came into the room.

“Ah, Nephew, you’re home.  How’s my money doing?”

Donald resisted the urge to cringe.  “Terrible,” he muttered.

“Good, good,” Scrooge said, ignoring Donald’s sarcasm.  “Oh, that reminds me.  It’s payday.  Don’t spend it all in one place.”

Donald gave an angry huff and left, heading to the houseboat.  And to think, there had been a time when he couldn’t imagine moving out of the Manor.

 

* * *

 

That night, as Donald lay in bed, he couldn’t help but think about how _grating_ it was living back at McDuck Manor.  He felt like a college kid home on summer break.  After living on your own for a while, moving back in with family was absolute torture.

The constant questions about what he was doing with his life.  What he was doing with his money.  His job situation.  Unsolicited advice about all of the above.  Jabs about how he was raising the boys.  Made all the worse because Scrooge had more money than he could ever do anything with, even if lived forever (and it was certainly looking like he would…) but wouldn’t share so much as a dime of it with his own family.

…

Ok, except for the job, and living at the Manor, and keeping his houseboat in the Manor swimming pool, and using the Manor’s electricity, and eating out of the Manor’s kitchen...

That...probably cost a lot of money.

Oh.


	27. Cage

“Hey, watch it!”

“Ow!”

“Quit it!”

Whoosh!  All was dark.

* * *

Dewey slowly opened his eyes.  No pain.  No dizziness.  Just the faintest trace of a weird smell in his nose.

Definitely not the worst way to wake up.

He tried to think.  The last thing he remembered, he and the boys (and Webby, who was basically one of the boys at this point) had been exploring an abandoned temple with Uncles Scrooge and Donald, and they’d gone off on their own because said Uncles had started fighting about what they should do next.  And then Webby had run off on her own because she was super eager to do _everything_ , especially exploring an ancient temple, which was a super great quality and made her even more fun to be around (seriously, who knew that _riding a bus_ could be exciting?), except when it meant that she got separated from everybody else.  It hadn’t helped that the lights were already dim, and they were only using two flashlights (well, one, now that Webby had run off) so they’d still have backups in case the batteries went dead.  And then some dark shadowy figures had come out of nowhere and grabbed at them and Dewey could _feel_ his brothers trying to hit back but then the dim light turned into no light and now he was here.

Wait.  If Webby had run off just before they were attacked, did that mean she…?

Nah.

Dewey shifted, trying to get his bearings in the once-again dim light, and suddenly the whole floor tilted.  Dewey frantically shifted the other way, trying to balance it out, but instead, the floor tilted the other way.  Dewey threw himself on his stomach, trying to make it stop.  He could feel the floor swinging back and forth underneath him, finally slowing down.  It almost felt like the houseboat, but somehow less...secure.

Dewey dragged himself towards the wall, squinting to make out, well, _anything._   His eyes seemed to be having trouble adjusting.

_Bonk!_

“Ow!” Dewey muttered, rubbing his head where it had collided with the wall.

Wait a second.  That wasn’t a wall.  That was... _bars_?  Dewey was in a _cage_?  What was he, some kind of bird???

Ok, Dewey, focus.  It looked like the cage was hanging from the ceiling, which meant that, even if he could find a way to fit through the bars, he probably didn’t want to go that route.  And he was alone, so that meant--

Crap.  Where were Huey, Louie, and Webby?

“Ah, I see that you are awake.”

Dewey peered down through the bars of the cage as best as he could.  “Who are you?” he asked.  “And what did you do with my brothers?”

“It looks like I misjudged the dosage.  I do apologize about that.”

“Where. Are. My brothers?” Dewey said.

The voice hummed thoughtfully.  “They’re not important.”

Dewey shook the bars of his cage, causing it to swing wildly.  “ _Where are they???_ ” he demanded.

“I have a few questions to ask you,” the voice said.  “Nothing difficult.”

“I won’t tell you anything until you tell me where my brothers are.”

“That’s too bad,” the voice said.  “How do you get inside Scrooge McDuck’s Money Bin?”

“What about Webby?” Dewey said.

The voice didn’t answer.  Right as Dewey decided to repeat himself, it spoke again.  “Who?”

“Hi-ya!”

Dewey heard a few dull thuds accompanied by some very familiar yelling.

“Webby?” Dewey asked.

“I’ll get you down in a second,” Webby said, taking aim with...was that a crossbow?

“Wait, no, Webby, don’t--”

_Thwang!_

Dewey screamed as the chain holding the cage was broken, sending them both crashing to the ground.

He groaned as hands helped him to his feet.

“Are you ok?” said Huey.

“There you guys are!” Dewey said, relieved.  “That creep wouldn’t tell me anything!  Are you ok?”

“Yeah, we’re fine,” Louie said.  “But are _you_ ok?”

“What?  Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” Dewey said.  “How’d you guys escape?”

“Somehow, they managed to miss Webby,” Huey said.

“Yeah, so as soon as I realized you guys were gone, I came to get you,” she said.

“How about we get back to Uncle Donald and Uncle Scrooge before anyone else nabs us?” Louie suggested.

“Good idea,” Huey said, and the quartet turned and made their way back through the ancient temple.


	28. Power

Lightning strobed across the room.  

_Crash!  Boom!_

Huey shut his eyes tightly until the sound died away.

“Ten seconds!” Webby said, marking the data down on her notepad.  “That means the lightning is about two miles away.”

Huey felt a reassuring hand on his shoulder.  He looked up at Uncle Donald from where he was sitting at his uncle’s feet.

It wasn’t that Huey was afraid of thunder and lightning.  He was afraid of what it could do.  It could start fires, fell trees, capsize the houseboat, blow the houseboat out to sea...

Life was generally better when there wasn’t any thunder and lightning.

Huey gasped as another bolt of lightning lit up the room.

_Crash!  Boom!_

“Five seconds!” Webby said.  “I don’t think we’ve ever had a storm this close!”

That was because thunder and lightning were not supposed to be this near people.

“Ooooooh, we should tell scary stories!” Dewey said.

Uncle Donald shot him a Look.  “No scary stories,” he said.

“Awww…”

_Crash!  Boom!_

And the lights went out.

Huey heard a few screams, and he wasn’t sure if any of them were him.  Judging by the way Uncle Donald squeezed his shoulder, though, there was a pretty good chance one of them was.

“Oh, for cryin’ out loud, calm down,” Scrooge said.  “You’d think you’d never seen the dark before.”

“We should get flashlights and candles,” Uncle Donald said.

“I’ll get some candles and matches from the kitchen,” Mrs. Beakley said.  “There are flashlights in the hall closets both upstairs and down.”

“We can get those!” Dewey volunteered.

“Very well,” Scrooge said.  “And hurry it up.  I don’t need to hear any more of your screaming.”

“We should split up,” Louie said.  

“I’ll go with Webby,” Huey said.  She should know where the flashlights were, which meant a minimal amount of time spent roaming around McDuck Manor in the dark.

“Aw, man, we’re gonna get lost,” Dewey complained.

“That was _one_ time!” Louie said.

“Two,” Huey said.

“Captain Lost!  Captain Lost!  Captain Lost!” Dewey chanted.

“Huey and I will get the flashlights from upstairs.  That way you won’t get _too_ lost,” Webby said.  “Hopefully.”

“Sounds good to me,” Louie said as Dewey began his chant again.  “Let’s go, First Mate Doofus.”

“Hey!”

As his brothers walked away, Huey formulated a plan.  “We just have to go upstairs, turn left, go down the second hallway to the right, and...it’s not going to be that easy, is it?”

Webby pulling spy gear out of her bag.  “Hey, is that a map of the Manor?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Huey said.

“Did you make it yourself?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool!” Webby said.  “I have one too!”  She showed him hers as another flash of lightning and crack of thunder vibrated through the house, allowing him to see how much more detailed it was than his.  “Anyway, it’ll be much faster if we go through the vents.”

“How about we just take the direct route?” Huey said.

“Oh, come on.  It isn’t that bad.”

“It is when the power is out!” Huey said.  “What if we get stuck or lost up there?  No one will ever find us!”

“You won’t get lost as long as you stick with me,” Webby said.

“Well, I also won’t get lost in the vents if I don’t go into the vents to begin with,” Huey said.  “So I’m going to take the stairs.”

“Fine,” Webby said, putting some of her gear back into her bag.  She grabbed him by the wrist and led him over to the stairs, which they were able to climb without incident (save another crash of thunder, which caused Huey to freeze for a moment until it died away).  

“All righty.  The flashlights should be in this closet...uh…” Webby stopped.

“What--oh,” Huey said.  

The door next to the closet was _glowing_.

“That...usually doesn’t do that,” Webby said.

“That’s...disconcerting,” Huey said.

“Want to check it out?” Webby said eagerly.

“We should probably leave it alone and tell Uncle Scrooge,” Huey said.  “Or at least get the guys.”

“Nah, that’ll take too long,” Webby said, pushing open the door.  Huey had no choice but to follow.

Inside, the room looked like every other unused bedroom in the Manor (Huey would never understand why his great-uncle had so many bedrooms; it wasn’t like he ever had anyone over).  There was a big bed made up in fancy but outdated bedding, a wooden wardrobe, a night table, and a generic picture hanging up on the wall.  

Except this room had the addition of a glowing globe in the corner.

Webby had already gone over to investigate, so Huey joined her.  

“What do you know about glowing globes?” he asked.

Webby shrugged.  “Not much,” she said.  She looked at the globe more closely.  “It looks like it’s these islands that are glowing.”

“And more over here,” Huey said, pointing.  “But what does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” Webby said, pulling her notepad out of her bag and shoving it at Huey.  “Here, write them down.”

Huey did.  “Ok, but what are you--”

Webby carefully placed her fingers on the glowing islands.

“Maybe that’s not such a good idea--”

With a click, the globe opened at the equator, revealing a blue, glowing ghost.

Huey and Webby both screamed and ran towards the door, which slammed shut in their faces.  Huey tried the handle, which was locked tight, while Webby turned to face the specter.

“What do you want?” she asked, her voice surprisingly confident.

The ghost wailed in response.  Huey started kicking at the door.

“I need a distraction!” Webby said, digging through her bag.

“A distraction?” Huey asked.  “What we need is to get out of here!”

“Just distract the ghost!” Webby said, shoving him into the middle of the room.

“Um...here, Mr. Ghost!” Huey said, waving his arms.  “I have some, um, ghost cakes for you!”

The ghost gave another wail and swooped towards him.  Huey screamed.

“Eat dust, globe ghost!” Webby said from the other side of the room.  She pointed a small, cylindrical device at the ghost and switched it on.  The device began sucking up the ghost like a vacuum cleaner.

“Get ready to close the globe!” Webby said, and Huey rushed over to take his position.

Once the ghost’s tail was stuck firmly in the cylinder, Webby dragged it over to the open globe.  She pushed the ghost inside and flipped the switch on the device, spitting the ghost’s bottom half out.

“Now!” she yelled, and Huey slammed the globe shut.

The two kids leaned against the globe as the glow dimmed, catching their breath.

“Does that kind of thing happen often?” Huey asked between breaths.

“Eh, once in a blue moon,” Webby said.  She put her ghost-sucking-cylinder back in her bag.  “Now to get those flashlights!”

The two kids made their way out of the room, making sure to shut the door tightly behind them, and quickly found the flashlights in the hall closet before returning downstairs.  Uncle Donald and Uncle Scrooge were arguing quietly, a sight familiar enough that Huey didn’t even bother to listen in to figure out what they were fighting about this time, and Dewey and Louie were shining their flashlights on their faces to create spooky shadows.

“Do you think we should tell them?” Webby asked.

Huey thought for a moment.  “How about we wait until tomorrow?” he said.

A flash of lightning lit up the room, and, after a pause, thunder gently rumbled through the room.

“Thirty seconds,” Webby said, disappointed.  “The storm is moving away.”

Huey breathed a sigh of relief.  He’d had enough bright lights and loud sounds for one day.


	29. Invitation

“Sweet!” said Louie, holding a card.  “I’ve been invited to Jimmy Gull’s birthday party!”

“Jimmy Gull’s?” Huey said.  “You don’t even know him.”

“Who’s Jimmy Gull?” Webby asked.

“Only the coolest guy at school!” said Louie.

“Awww, how come we weren’t invited?” Dewey said.

“I guess _you_ aren’t cool.”

“Hey!”

“Has he ever even talked to you?” asked Huey.

“Not really,” Louie said.  “Except when he gave me the invitation.”

Huey took it from him.  It looked like a standard invitation--the party was on Saturday at Jimmy’s house, RSVP by Thursday.  “I don’t know,” Huey said, handing it back to his brother.  “Seems kind of sketchy to me.”

“Or the start of a whole new Louie Duck!” Louie said.  “I’ll finally be popular!”

“What does that mean?” Webby asked.  “Does it mean you’ll get better grades?”

“No.”

“Better chances of getting into college?”

“No--”

“Make teachers like you better?”

“No--”

“Then what does it _do_?”

“It makes more people like me.”

“How many people actually like Jimmy Gull?” Huey asked.

“I like him,” Louie said.

“Eh, I’m kind of indifferent,” Dewey said.

“Either way, birthday parties mean free cake, so I’m not complaining.”

“It also means you have to get him a present,” Huey said.

“Oh.  Right.  Do you think he’d like one of Uncle Scrooge’s mystical doohickies?” Louie said.

“I don’t think Mr. McDuck would want you taking any of his things,” Webby said.

Louie shrugged.  “I’ll figure something out.”

“You should probably ask Uncle Donald if you can go first,” Huey said.

Louie rolled his eyes.  “Yes, Uncle Hubert.”

* * *

Donald stopped the car in front of the house as Louie double checked to make sure the house number was the same as the one on the invitation.  

“Are we at the right place?” he asked, although the birthday balloons tied to the mailbox seemed to be a dead giveaway.

“Yep!” Louie said, opening the car door.

“I’ll be back at 7.  Call or text me if you want to come home early,” Donald said.  

“Ok, Uncle Donald,” Louie said, getting out of the car.

“Have fun!” Donald called right before Louie shut the door behind him.  He watched his nephew walk up the driveway and ring the doorbell, making sure he got inside before driving away.

Donald had gotten a lot better about letting his nephews go places without him.  It had been hard, at first, not to be afraid that they would disappear just like their mother had.  After a lot of practice and experience (and giving each kid a cell phone), though, that fear had largely abated.  Still, Donald felt uneasy about this party.  The kid’s mom had promised she and her husband would be there the whole party when Donald had RSVP’d, so he wasn’t worried about the kids getting into any sort of trouble.  But why would this kid invite his Louie to his party if they’d never really talked before?  The whole thing stunk of deceit.

So Donald kept his phone close by the whole hour and a half that Louie spent at the party before sending out a “please come get me” text.

Donald had obliged, giving his standard excuse of “a minor family emergency, nothing to worry about but something I need Louie for nonetheless.”  They walked to the car together in silence.  Donald pulled away from the house, waiting to see if Louie would volunteer any information about the birthday party.  When his nephew remained silent, Donald decided to try to jumpstart things a little.

“How was the party?” he asked.

Louie turned away, looking out the window.  Donald knew that nothing good would come of turning the car around and giving Jimmy Gull and his parents a piece of his mind, but if whatever had happened was too bad for Louie to talk about--

“They only cared about Scrooge,” Louie finally said.

“Scrooge?” Donald asked.  “What’s he got to do with anything?”

“They wanted to know what it was like living in his mansion, having access to huge piles of money, private jets to anywhere in the world.  They wanted to know why I keep wearing this hoodie, as if Uncle Scrooge is going to buy me a whole new wardrobe when this one’s still perfectly good.”  Louie crossed his arms.  “And he didn’t even like my birthday present.  What was he expecting, a gold-plated skateboard?  Even if he _was_ my friend, I’d never spend that much money on an eleven-year-old’s birthday present.”

“I see,” Donald said.  “I’m sorry about all of that.  Being rich attracts a lot of people who are hoping to get something from you.”

“But that’s just the thing!   _We_ aren’t rich!  Scrooge is!  The only thing we get out of it is getting to live in his mansion.”

“And going on his crazy treasure-hunting adventures.”

“But that’s not because he’s _rich_ , it’s because he likes going on adventures!”

“You have to have a lot of money to be able to take off to the far corners of the world at the drop of a hat to _maybe_ find some treasure,” Donald pointed out.

“Yeah, ok, _fine_.  But still.  It’s not like those are vacations.”

Donald was quiet for a moment.  “No,” he agreed.  “But you’re still getting to see parts of the world that most people will never get to see.  Louie, Scrooge is able to provide a _lot_ for you and your brothers that I was never able to, and that most of your friends’ parents are never going to be able to provide for them.  But still.  That doesn’t give them the right to try to befriend you to try to get access to Scrooge’s money.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Louie thinking about his uncle’s words.

“Did anything like this ever happened to you, Uncle Donald?” he finally asked.

Donald thought for a moment.  “A little, here and there.  But Scrooge and I always fought so much, and he was always such a skinflint, that everybody knew that I had very little to do with his wealth.”  Donald paused.  “I got hounded more by the tabloids than anything else.”

Louie sat up.  “The _tabloids?_ ”

“Scrooge was always very secretive about his private life.  And they never bothered to fact check, so…”

“Wait, you _lied_ to them?”

“It’s not like they were ever going to find out.  And if I made a few bucks out of it, well, that certainly didn’t hurt.”

“Whoa.”  Louie thought this over.  “Hold on, does that mean that those tabloids we collected--”

“Full of lies,” Donald finished for him.  “Newspaper articles, on the other hand, are usually more reliable.”

“Huh.”

They drove in silence for a few minutes.

“Still, Jimmy Gull is a big, fat, stupid--”

“Language,” Donald warned.  “Why don’t you ask Uncle Scrooge what he does about people who only want to get close to him for his money?  He might have some valuable insights.  Though most of those insights might amount to ‘don’t have friends,’ so definitely take whatever he says with a grain of salt.”

“Ok,” Louie said.

And, Donald thought, maybe a talk about how to avoid money-grubbing friends was also in order.


	30. Secret

 "Oh my god, I can’t believe you found them!”

“Behold, the power of the internet, my dear Dewford.”

“Do you have the hiding place ready, Louie?”

“Sure do.  Uncle Donald will never find them here.”  He tucked the costumes away in the back of their shared closet, way back with all of the clothing they’d grown out of but hadn’t gotten around to getting rid of.

“Perfect,” Huey said.  “Now, remember, this is a _secret_.  No breathing a word about it to anybody, including Webby.”  He looked at Dewey as he said this.

“What?  I can keep a secret!” Dewey said.

“Pff.  Says the guy who’s had his uncle order his own birthday presents from him for the past three years,” Louie said.

“That’s different!” Dewey said.

“Either way,” Huey cut in.  “Nobody says anything about it.  Got it?”

“Got it,” his brothers chorused.

* * *

Dewey ran into their bedroom, slamming the door behind him before throwing his body against it to keep whatever was following him out.

“Webby wants to do group costumes!” he said.

“Tell her we already have our costumes,” Louie said.

“She wants to know what they are so she can match!” Dewey said.

“Well, can she keep a secret?” Louie said.

“Probably?” Dewey said.

“I don’t know…” Huey said.  

“She’s not gonna give it up!” Dewey said.

“I still don’t think we should tell her,” Huey said.

“Why don’t you tell her that they’re traditional?” Louie suggested.  “You know, the standard types of spooky things you see each year.”

Dewey snickered.  “How is a ghost with a ‘pumpkin friend’ on his head traditional?” he said.

“I was five!” Louie said, throwing his pillow at his brother.

“That’s not a bad idea,” Huey said.  “It’s not _wrong_ , but it’s still not giving it away.”

“Traditional spooky Halloween monsters.  Got it,” Dewey said.  He cautiously opened the door and ventured back out into McDuck Manor, where he was promptly tackled by one over eager little girl.

* * *

“Are you gonna hand out candy this year, Uncle Scrooge?” Huey asked.

“Oh, you should give out king-sized candy bars!” Dewey said.

“In what universe do you think Scrooge McDuck would give away two-dollar candy bars?  He might as well just give everybody two bucks,” Louie said.  “Hey, that’s not a bad idea.”

“Mrs. Beakley handles Halloween,” Uncle Scrooge said.

“Do you think _she_ hands out king-sized candy bars?” Dewey asked his brothers.

“No,” said Louie.

“Dang it,” Dewey said.

“You do realize you can go to the store and buy one for yourself, right?” Huey said.

“It’s just not the _same_!” Dewey said.

* * *

“Want to go shopping for Halloween costumes after school?” Uncle Donald asked.

Huey almost choked on his breakfast.

“No thanks, Uncle Donald,” Louie said smoothly.  “We already have our costumes.”

“You do?”  Uncle Donald’s face fell, but he quickly forced a smile.  Uncle Donald was really big on Halloween, especially the getting dressed up part.  “What are you going to go as?”

“It’s a surprise!” Dewey said.

Uncle Donald looked confused.  “A surprise?”  He made a face.  “You’re not all going to go as me again, are you?”

“You’ll see!” Louie said before either of his brothers could respond.  The key to keeping a secret was to not answer _any_ questions about it.

* * *

“What about a witch?”

“Meh.”

“Ooooh, I could go as a pumpkin!”

“Definitely not.”

“How about a ghost?”

“Eh.”

“Bat?”

“Not really ‘traditional.’”

“The Scream?”

“No.”

“Spooky clown?”

“ _Absolutely not!_ ”

“Frankenstein’s monster?”

“Now there’s a good idea,” Dewey said thoughtfully.  

“And it’ll fit in with your costumes?” Webby asked.

“Yeah, I think so,” Dewey said.

“Awesome!” Webby said, running off towards her room.  “And I’ve got the perfect green face paint…”

Why would Webby already have…?  You know what?  Never mind.

* * *

The night had finally come.  Webby had run off to her room about two hours ago to put on her costume.  Mrs. Beakley was down at the front gate with her supply of goodies to hand out (not king-sized, but still quality candy).  And Uncle Donald was downstairs, dressed up as a vampire for the third year running, waiting to take them out as soon as they were ready.

Huey, Dewey, and Louie, had spread out their own costumes on Louie’s bed.  A devil for Huey, a witch for Dewey, and a ghost-with-a-pumpkin-friend-on-his-head for Louie.

The first time they’d dressed up in these costumes, they hadn’t been allowed to trick-or-treat, since Uncle Donald was still very nervous and paranoid and they had been pretty little.  A girl dressed up as a witch (with a wart and everything!) had convinced them that Uncle Donald was holding out on them with the good treats (which, she’d claimed, was the _real_ reason he wouldn’t let them trick-or-treat, which had made perfect sense to their five-year-old brains), so she helped them pull pranks on him to get them.  The next year was the first one they went trick-or treating (wearing the same costumes, since Uncle Donald had been between jobs again).

These weren’t the originals, of course, since they’d grown since then, but they were amazingly similar.  Huey and Dewey still weren’t sure how Louie had been able to get a giant pumpkin hat to go with his own costume.

“Hey!  Are you guys ready yet!” Webby called from outside the door.

“Yeah, just a second!” Dewey said, and they quickly put on their costumes before opening the door.  

“Wow, you guys look great!” Webby said as Huey held a finger to his lips to signal to her not to give their costumes away.

“Whoa, that makeup is incredible!” Dewey said, looking Webby’s green-tinged face.  “How’d you get those bolts to stick?”

“Stage glue,” Webby said.  “And look,” she pulled up her bangs to reveal a stitched-up scar, “I even added a temporary tattoo!”

“Kids!  Are you ready?” Uncle Donald called.

“Yeah, we’re coming!” Huey said.  He turned to his siblings.  “Ready?”

“Yeah!”

Uncle Donald’s face lit up when he saw the kids coming down the stairs.

“Those costumes look familiar,” he said, suppressing a smile.  He raised an eyebrow.  “There aren’t going to be any pranks this year, are there?”

“No, Uncle Donald,” the boys chorused, barely able to hide their own grins.

“Nice Frankenstein’s monster, Webby,” Uncle Donald said.  “I like all the green.”

“Thanks,” Webby said, a huge smile of her own appearing on her face.

“Are you kids ready to go trick-or-treating?” Uncle Donald asked.

“Yeah!” the kids chorused.

“Then let’s go!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The costumes, of course, are based on the short "Trick-or-Treat." I'm almost certain the cartoon doesn't specify which nephew is in which costume, so I guessed based on color (the devil costume is red, and witch costume has a blue shirt, etc.).


	31. Final

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my sister for giving me the basic idea.

_“You’re not our mom!”_

The words echoed in Donald’s head hours after they’d been shouted in anger.  The argument had been over whether or not the kids could go with Scrooge on his latest adventure.  Donald had said no because the last adventure hadn’t gone so well, they were still exhausted from it, and they’d been giving him a lot of attitude recently, all of which were most likely connected.  But the kids had protested, and then Scrooge had to go and take their side, and the argument was as good as lost, though Donald wasn’t about to admit that (rule #1 of parenting: never give in to arguments about a punishment).

And then that gem had spilled out of Dewey’s mouth.

And Donald had just gone numb.  No, numb wasn’t the right word--there was a hollow place in his chest where his feelings used to be.  No anger, no happiness, no love, no nothing.  As a parent, Donald had gone through a lot of trying times, but this?  This was the final straw.

He’d turned on his heels and walked out of the mansion and into the houseboat, probably slamming the doors a little too hard behind him.  Donald had to give the boys credit--he’d never seen anybody with white feathers go so pale.  But it didn’t make Dewey’s words sting any less.

Donald knew that he wasn’t their mother (or father, for that matter).  He was reminded of that fact every time they addressed him as “Uncle Donald” (not that he wanted them to call him Dad).  He wished he could give them their parents; he really did.  He’d lost count of how many nights he’d spent laying in bed, mourning the loss of that maternal figure in their lives.

But that didn’t mean he didn’t try.  God, how he tried.  Donald Duck, who hadn’t been able to hold down a job for more than three months before or after the Navy, who’d spent most of his adult years traipsing the globe with his uncle and sister hunting for treasure and fighting off unscrupulous villains, who hadn’t yet gotten around to learning how to be an _adult_ , had suddenly had to fill the roles of both mother and father to three baby boys, and he threw himself into the task like he’d never had before.  His bookcase was _still_ full of parenting books and very little else, he hadn’t talked to any of his old friends in _years_...he’d missed out on a lifetime caring for those boys, and he’d do it again in an instant.  

But now…

The boys did seem to like Scrooge better, these days.  And he could provide for them in ways that Donald never could.  Living with Scrooge, his nephews would never know hunger, or cold, or the feeling of having to wear too-tight clothes.  They would get a first-class education accompanying him on all of his adventures and watching him run his businesses, and he’d surely be able to afford to send them to college, regardless of any earned scholarships.  

There was nothing holding Donald here.  There was no reason he couldn’t sign the kids over to Scrooge and take off to explore the world in his houseboat, like he’d always planned.

...Except, back when that had been the plan, it had been with Della and Scrooge at his side.

Donald put his head in his hands, the hot chocolate he had made earlier with shaking hands sitting cold and forgotten on the table before him.  The boys were now running around who knows where with Scrooge, getting into who knows what trouble, probably wishing they’d grown up with him rather than their mother’s brother.  

There was a quiet knock at the door.  Donald ignored it, figuring that it was just the wind, or his imagination, but then he heard it again.

Donald slowly pulled his head of out his hands and dragged himself to the door.  

And there was Dewey, looking at him with those big, tear-filled eyes that always made Donald want to _destroy_ whoever had done that to him.

“Uncle Donald?” he said, his voice tiny.  

Donald opened his arms, and Dewey rushed into them.

“I’m sorry, Unca Donald,” Dewey said between hiccuping sobs.  “I didn’t mean it.”

“I know,” Donald soothed, holding his nephew tighter.  And he _did_ know.  Dewey was just a kid, and it’s not like what he said wasn’t true.  It was only natural for a boy his age to think about how his mother was _gone_ , and how his only parental figure was his uncle, and how those two roles were usually not equal.

Dewey sniffled.  “We didn’t go with Uncle Scrooge,” he said.  “And we promise to try to be better.”

“Thank you,” Donald said, giving his nephew another squeeze before pulling away.  “Where are your brothers?”

Dewey reluctantly let go and went to the door, motioning to his brothers to come inside.

“We’re _really_ sorry, Uncle Donald,” Huey said.

“Yeah, Dewey didn’t mean it,” Louie added.

“I know,” Donald said, pulling all three of his nephews into a hug.

Donald could feel that hollow place in his chest begin to fill back up with love and forgiveness.  They would get through this, like they’d gotten through everything else life had thrown at them over the last ten years.  And they would come out all the stronger for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to say a huge thanks to everyone who's read Ducktober, whether you read every chapter or just picked out the ones that sounded most interesting to you. I'd also like to give a special thanks to everyone who's left kudos, and an _extra_ special thank you to everyone who's taken the time to leave a comment. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go catch up on my sleep.


End file.
